mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

ith140 · 2006-07-12 02:10:04

I'm having issues with the new mkinitcpio. Sometimes my machine boots, sometimes it doesn't. It appears to have problems when it tries to hook in the filesystem (reiserfs) at boot and fails with a -e response. Here's a copy of my mkinitcpio.conf file.

# vim:set ft=sh
# MODULES
# The following modules are loaded before any boot hooks are
# run. Advanced users may wish to specify all system modules
# in this array. For instance:
# MODULES="piix ide_disk reiserfs"
MODULES="reiserfs ide_disk piix"
# BINARIES
# This setting includes, into the CPIO image, and additional
# binaries a given user may wish. This is run first, so may
# be used to override the actual binaries used in a given hook.
# (Existing files are NOT overwritten is already added)
# BINARIES are dependancy parsed, so you may safely ignore libraries
BINARIES=""
# FILES
# This setting is similar to BINARIES above, however, files are added
# as-is and are not parsed in anyway. This is useful for config files.
# Some users may wish to include modprobe.conf for custom module options,
# like so:
# FILES="/etc/modprobe.conf"
FILES=""
# HOOKS
# This is the most important setting in this file. The HOOKS control the
# modules and scripts added to the image, and what happens at boot time.
# Order is important, and it is recommended that you do not change the
# order in which HOOKS are added. Run 'mkinitcpio -H <hook>' for
# help on a given hook.
# 'base' is _required_ unless you know precisely what you are doing.
# 'udev' is _required_ in order to automatically load modules
# 'modload' may be used in place of 'udev', but is not recommended
# 'filesystems' is _required_ unless you specify your fs modules in MODULES
# Examples:
# This setup specifies all modules in the MODULES setting above.
# No raid, lvm, or encrypted root is needed.
# HOOKS="base"
#
# This setup will autodetect all modules for your system and should
# work as a sane default
# HOOKS="base udev autodetect ide scsi sata filesystems"
#
# This setup will generate a 'full' image which supports most systems.
# No autodetection is done.
# HOOKS="base udev ide scsi sata usb filesystems"
#
# This setup assembles an ide raid array with an encrypted root FS.
# Note: See 'mkinitcpio -H raid' for more information on raid devices.
# HOOKS="base udev ide filesystems raid encrypt"
#
# This setup loads an LVM volume group on a usb device.
# HOOKS="base udev usb filesystems lvm"
HOOKS="base udev autodetect ide scsi"

I'm also using the beyond kernel. Any help or common experience out there? Many thanks!

Gullible Jones · 2006-07-12 02:36:28

You know, you don't have to specify your modules if you use the autodetect hook... Maybe there's something going on with that?

phrakture · 2006-07-12 16:31:06

Can you provide the failure messages? If your filesystem flat-out fails to mount, I believe you have larger problems. Try running a fsck.

If it is a timing thing, try adding "rootdelay=5" or something to your kernel parameters, and it will pause slightly before trying to mount.

Gullible Jones wrote:

You know, you don't have to specify your modules if you use the autodetect hook... Maybe there's something going on with that?

In fact, if you specify them at all, you don't need the accompanying hooks. On a typical system, you can get away with specifying all modules and only using the 'base' hook.

Gullible Jones · 2006-07-12 17:04:58

Ooh... You can do that without using the ide, filesystem, etc. hooks? I should have figured that out... Thanks. :oops:

ith140 · 2006-07-15 01:15:21

Hmm. I can't seem to get the system to do the reiserfs -e thing, but my computer is now intermittently coming up with:

kinit: Cannot open root device dev(33,8 )
kinit: init not found
kernel panic - not syncing attempting to kill init!

I tried looking up with the device number corresponds to and it looks like it might be CD/DVD related, but I'm not 100 % sure....

Under mkinitramfs everything worked fine....

ith140 · 2006-07-18 17:23:16

I've just updated to the newest beyond kernel (released yesterday) and I'm still having my system hang often on boot up. Any other suggestions?

Is there a way to tell what the current hooks are loaded in my system, so that I can try it without the autodetect function (maybe that's my problem). I just want to be sure my machine will boot. I'm guessing I need base, udev, reiserfs, ide only.

IsSuE · 2006-07-18 22:58:28

i am having the same problems with beyond an normal arch kernel. could you post your systems specs, probably we have a simmilar sys.

phrakture · 2006-07-19 05:29:57

ith140 wrote:

kinit: Cannot open root device dev(33,8 )

You sure that's right? 33:8 is like /dev/hdd8. What does your kernel command line look like? What bootloader are you using?

ith140 · 2006-07-20 02:54:00

Phrakture,

I've seen the screen so many times now that the numbers 33,8 are burned into my head! As you said it is a device that should not exist! For the record, I have hda, hdc, hde, hdi discs in my /dev dir.

I'm using GRUB, and here's my kernel commands:
title Arch Linux [/boot/vmlinuz26]
root (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26beyond root=/dev/hde8 ro ide=100
initrd /boot/kernel26beyond.img

ith140 · 2006-07-20 02:57:18

My system specs are (this is old hardware so my memory is foggy):

AMD T-bird 800
ATI 9600 Video
WD Caviar 160 GB drive
Quantum Bigfoot 60 GB drive (I should get rid of this as it is slow and ancient)
Floppy
Pioneer DVD drive 118S
Teac CD-R/RW 524-C

Any of this the same?

sweiss · 2006-07-21 09:36:32

I'm having the same problem with Arch's stock kernel. It works with the beyond kernel though.

This is really troubling.

Kermit · 2006-07-21 10:20:59

I had the same problem. I created image again use this command: "mkinitcpio -g nameofimage.img" and now it's working.

Kermit.

phrakture · 2006-07-21 14:57:15

Ok, all you having this problem. The "Cannot open root device dev(X,Y)" is rather generic. All of you with this issue, please grab the last 5 or so lines *before* that and post them here, along with the HOOKS line from mkinitcpio.conf.
Thanks

IsSuE · 2006-07-21 16:35:32

SCSI device sdc; drive cache: write back
sdc:sdc1
::Running Hook [filesystems]
::Loading root filesystem module....-e
Attemping to create root device '/dev/sda3'
/bin/mknod "/dev/root" b 8 3
/init:1: cannot open /dev/root: No such device or adress
::Initramfs Completed - control passing to kinit
kinit: Cannot open root device dev(8,3)
kinit: init not found
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attemping to kill init!

HOOKS="base udev autodetect  sata filesystems"

phrakture: did u recieve my email?

ith140 · 2006-07-23 13:54:24

I understand my problem now, but I'm not certain how to fix it. The problem at boot arises because I have two hard drives (one new conataining Windoze, Linux, etc. which is where Grub and my boot partition are. My other (ancient) drive I only use to back stuff up to). For some reason, when the machine boots up (after GRUB hands off control) my drive identification (hdx, where x is alphabetic) is inconsistent. Nomally, my computers new HD drive is hde1 through hde8. When udev runs properly my machine works as it assigns the device nodes properly. My old hd is hdi1.

When my computer fails to boot and crashes with the kinit messages, udev has given my old harddrive the device numbers hdi1 through 8 and it gives my new HD hde1. My machine can't find the boot partition and thus fails.

Now, that's whats happening any idea how to fix it? I suppose dropping the old HD out of my system would work, but I was hoping for a more elegant solution. Is this perhaps a udev problem and not a mkinitcpio one?

ith140 · 2006-07-28 15:32:25

Has anybody else had the drive letter issue on boot?

I still can't seem to find anything on my problem (it shouldn't be GRUB related (no static device map required) as GRUB is done when the error occurs). It seems to be udev mixing up my hardware??

phrakture · 2006-07-28 18:39:51

If you can write udev rules for your harddrives, you can include the rules via FILES="".... just a thought. tpowa would be best to ask about udev issues, he knows more than I about udev rules.

tpowa · 2006-07-29 10:29:34

my strong guess, is that you have 2 controllers on your board, which both are included as modules into the ramdisk.
udev loads parallel and so it seems to switch the hd device.
try to load the controller modules by hand in correct order 'MODULES=' in mkinitpcio.conf, to get rid of this.

sweiss · 2006-07-30 15:48:05

ith140: I'm having the same problem and I've only one HDD, so I suspect it's something else.

This is really frustrating, for some reason the beyond kernel works but I don't like it much. I really want the stock one :

ith140 · 2006-07-31 02:43:23

A big thanks to phrakture and tpowa. I do have two promise controllers as you suggested, and I'm on my way to getting everything working again....

You guys are both great! Thanks for all your hard work!

IsSuE · 2006-07-31 08:59:37

same here, i got 2 sata controllers... will try now. ty

one more question: i got asn intel 875p chipsset and a SIL sata controller onboard. which modules do i have to load? sata_sil anda ata_piix?

sweiss · 2006-08-04 14:33:41

sweiss wrote:

ith140: I'm having the same problem and I've only one HDD, so I suspect it's something else.
This is really frustrating, for some reason the beyond kernel works but I don't like it much. I really want the stock one :

This issue really frustrated me. And since the new beyond kernels freeze on me, I was almost ready to format my HDD and try another distribution.

I took a one last look at my menu.lst file, which showed me the light: That I'm an idiot.

Looks like for some reason, my grub entry was loading the beyond kernel with the stock kernel's image, instead of loading the stock kernel as well.

For that I apologize.

ubermartian · 2006-08-08 00:06:59

This is still no go with me on the beyond kernel. The stock kernel works fine with the same config file.

MODULES="reiserfs aic7xxx"
"HOOKS="base udev scsi filesystems lvm2"

The stock kernel has a pause where it probes the scsi card for devices. The beyond kernel doesn't do this, it just goes straight to error messages about block device /dev/sda2 and kinit problems. (can't remember the exact messages).

phrakture · 2006-08-08 04:19:18

ubermartian wrote:

This is still no go with me on the beyond kernel. The stock kernel works fine with the same config file.
MODULES="reiserfs aic7xxx"
"HOOKS="base udev scsi filesystems lvm2"
The stock kernel has a pause where it probes the scsi card for devices. The beyond kernel doesn't do this, it just goes straight to error messages about block device /dev/sda2 and kinit problems. (can't remember the exact messages).

Sounds like the module isn't loaded/included for the beyond kernel... are you sure a) the beyond kernel has this module? and b) you're passing the kernel version when building the image?

Arch Linux

#1 2006-07-12 02:10:04

mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#2 2006-07-12 02:36:28

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#3 2006-07-12 16:31:06

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#4 2006-07-12 17:04:58

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#5 2006-07-15 01:15:21

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#6 2006-07-18 17:23:16

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#7 2006-07-18 22:58:28

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#8 2006-07-19 05:29:57

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#9 2006-07-20 02:54:00

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#10 2006-07-20 02:57:18

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#11 2006-07-21 09:36:32

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#12 2006-07-21 10:20:59

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#13 2006-07-21 14:57:15

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#14 2006-07-21 16:35:32

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#15 2006-07-23 13:54:24

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#16 2006-07-28 15:32:25

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#17 2006-07-28 18:39:51

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#18 2006-07-29 10:29:34

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#19 2006-07-30 15:48:05

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#20 2006-07-31 02:43:23

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#21 2006-07-31 08:59:37

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#22 2006-08-04 14:33:41

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#23 2006-08-08 00:06:59

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

#24 2006-08-08 04:19:18

Re: mkinitcpio reiserfs kernel sync problem

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