[SOLVED] Debug boot without any video

Perdrix · 2021-06-08 09:34:59

This is my first experience with linux distro other then ubuntu, so I can mix up terminology
I got an old HP server which does not produce any video output at all, even during the POST phase and tried to install Arch from liveusb there.

When i boot with liveusb on, the ssh service starts automatically so lack of video is not a problem, as i can find server via nmap in my local network on other device and ssh there as root. Server and device are both connected via ethernet cables.
After doing ssh to server with liveusb I followed the process from https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide and everything seemed fine. As a boot loader i selected grub (efibootmgr command results in "EFI variables are not supported on this system." so probably server supports only BIOS and i only found instruction how to use BIOS for grub).
When i reboot without liveusb, nothing happens, nmap does not find server in local network. Without any video i can't understand what the problem is and whether it loaded at all.

So the questions are:
Can i somehow debug boot process of newly installed arch from ssh on liveusb? I mean the iterative process - fail to boot from installed arch, try to boot from liveusb, check logs, fix errors, try to boot without liveusb again and repeat until it works
Can i find the reason why server produces no video output at all?

lspci -k has the following part, so i assume that system is aware that it has video output:
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Electronics Systems Ltd. MGA G200e [Pilot] ServerEngines (SEP1) (rev 02)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 0100
Kernel driver in use: mgag200
Kernel modules: mgag200

I would really appreciate any ideas on what can I do to identify the problem

Last edited by Perdrix (2021-06-08 19:45:40)

V1del · 2021-06-08 10:23:31

Welcome to the boards

The Arch installation in and of itself does little to nothing to configure the actually installed system. Did you actively set up and configure an SSH server and enable it's service for the installed system from the chroot as well as relevant networking tools? As for checking iteratively, that should work fine, check the journal with journalctl to read the log of the failing boot after the chroot.

Last edited by V1del (2021-06-08 10:24:17)

Perdrix · 2021-06-08 11:22:33

Thank you V1del!

Did you actively set up and configure an SSH server and enable it's service for the installed system from the chroot as well as relevant networking tools?

I configured /etc/hosts/ and did the following comands,

pacman -S openssh
pacman -S dhcpcd
systemctl enable sshd.service
systemctl enable dhcpcd.service

as far as I understand, that should be enough for server to be visible by nmap scans.

About the journalctl:

After chroot i set the Storage=persistent in /etc/systemd/journald.conf and checked that /var/log/journal directory exists, but

journalctl --list-boots

always shows only the current boot and I can't get logs of previous ones.
Can it possibly mean that server start-up process fails before the boot?

I did disk partitioning from scratch before the installation, following installation guide

fdisk -l /dev/sda
Device         Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1       2048    2099199    2097152     1G BIOS boot
/dev/sda2    2099200  270534655  268435456   128G Linux root (x86-64)
/dev/sda3  270534656  295700479   25165824    12G Linux swap
/dev/sda4  295700480 1953525134 1657824655 790.5G Linux home

and

grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

finished with success, so I can't find a clue of what am I doing wrong

seth · 2021-06-08 14:38:36

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System … al_to_view - last section.
The iso journal (assuming this is what you boot to inspect the journal) will only contain the iso boot.

Does the thing have a working pcspkr?
You could make it beep on autologin, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Getty# … al_console ("printf '\a'" if "beep" isn't installed. Try whether the pcspkr is loaded and works from the iso)

Perdrix · 2021-06-08 15:35:54

Thank you, seth!

I used journalctl after doing the arch-chroot, so I thought it reads journal from installed Arch;
I tried command from wiki (being in archiso), and it resulted in:

journalctl -D /mnt/var/log/journal
No journal files were found.
-- No entries --

and direcrory /var/log/journal indeed has only one empty directory called 'remote' inside.

It seems that pcspkr is not working, because beep, printf '\a' and speaker-test does not produce any sound and last one results in sequence of errors

seth · 2021-06-08 15:40:19

Did you mount the root partition of the installed system to /mnt ?

Does it have keyboard leds?

while true; do setleds -num; sleep 0.25; setleds +num; sleep 0.25; done

Perdrix · 2021-06-08 16:30:46

Did you mount the root partition of the installed system to /mnt ?

Yes

Does it have keyboard leds?

Yes! Num led changes state when I type command blindly on keyboard connected to server.

I get the idea, but I am very unexperinced and probably ruined it with my realization:
I tried to follow https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Getty# … al_console
I created script /opt/leds.sh with your bash loop
and file /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d/override.conf with contents

[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=-/opt/leds.sh

turned the server on and num led on keyboard was always on.

seth · 2021-06-08 16:48:53

So, my wicked plan was to check whether the sshd is active and to tell you the IP…

This to test whether the services failed and whether you can ping your gateway/router/someknownip

#!/bin/bash
blink() {
   for ((i=0;i<$1;++i)); do
      setleds -num; leep 0.25; setleds +num; sleep 0.25
   done
}

setleds +num
blink 2
sleep 3
systemctl --failed | grep dhcpcd && blink 3 || blink 2
sleep 3
systemctl --failed | grep sshd && blink 5 || blink 2
sleep 3
ping -c1 192.168.1.1 || blink 4 # replace 192.168.1.1
sleep 3
blink 1

The plan also was to use the autologin getty from the example and run the script from the bashrc of the desired user (root, I guess)
You probably can also login and run it blindly instead (since the input isn't dead - oversight on my side)

We can try to trace the problem from there. Hopefully.

Perdrix · 2021-06-08 19:44:11

I solved the problem by completely reinstalling Arch.
I repartitioned HDD as follows:

Device        Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1      2048       4095       2048     1M BIOS boot
/dev/sda2      4096   25169919   25165824    12G Linux swap
/dev/sda3  25169920 1953525134 1928355215 919.5G Linux root (x86-64)

Thus making BIOS boot 1MB instead of 1GB, and not making separate partition for home.

Then journalctl started persisting logs between boots and ssh and dhcpd services launched automatically and I was able to find server via nmap and ssh to it.

Thank you for the help, the idea of sending blinking signals to keyboard is very creative!

Last edited by Perdrix (2021-06-09 06:52:36)

seth · 2021-06-08 21:10:26

very creative!

Not really. The kernel blinks at you when it halts w/ an error and most boards have such feature.

Not really sure what might have gone wrong w/ your prev. installation, thoug :\
*shrug*

Arch Linux

#1 2021-06-08 09:34:59

[SOLVED] Debug boot without any video

#2 2021-06-08 10:23:31

Re: [SOLVED] Debug boot without any video

#3 2021-06-08 11:22:33

Re: [SOLVED] Debug boot without any video

#4 2021-06-08 14:38:36

Re: [SOLVED] Debug boot without any video

#5 2021-06-08 15:35:54

Re: [SOLVED] Debug boot without any video

#6 2021-06-08 15:40:19

Re: [SOLVED] Debug boot without any video

#7 2021-06-08 16:30:46

Re: [SOLVED] Debug boot without any video

#8 2021-06-08 16:48:53

Re: [SOLVED] Debug boot without any video

#9 2021-06-08 19:44:11

Re: [SOLVED] Debug boot without any video

#10 2021-06-08 21:10:26

Re: [SOLVED] Debug boot without any video

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