Bug 59094
| Summary: | Inability to load ramdisk image on booting 2.4.9-21enterprise | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Product: | [Retired] Red Hat Linux | Reporter: | Rick Stevens <rstevens> |
| Component: | mkinitrd | Assignee: | Matt Wilson <msw> |
| Status: | CLOSED WORKSFORME | QA Contact: | David Lawrence <dkl> |
| Severity: | high | Docs Contact: | |
| Priority: | high | ||
| Version: | 7.1 | CC: | ewt, jlamb, rickera2, robinson |
| Target Milestone: | --- | ||
| Target Release: | --- | ||
| Hardware: | i686 | ||
| OS: | Linux | ||
| Whiteboard: | |||
| Fixed In Version: | Doc Type: | Bug Fix | |
| Doc Text: | Story Points: | --- | |
| Clone Of: | Environment: | ||
| Last Closed: | 2002-05-21 21:52:32 UTC | Type: | --- |
| Regression: | --- | Mount Type: | --- |
| Documentation: | --- | CRM: | |
| Verified Versions: | Category: | --- | |
| oVirt Team: | --- | RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host: | |
| Cloudforms Team: | --- | Target Upstream Version: | |
| Embargoed: | |||
| Attachments: | |||
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Description
Rick Stevens
2002-01-30 21:29:38 UTC
Created attachment 44040 [details]
System configuration, installation and boot transcripts
According to RH support, I have this issue on a Dell Poweredge 6300 running RH 7.1 (Seawolf). I tried to comment out the scsi in /etc/modules.conf and make the initrd inage but system will not reboot using new kernel. Please attach the initrd. Also run: rpm -e kernel-2.4.9-21enterprise rm /boot/initrd-2.4.9-21enterprise.img rpm -ivh kernel-2.4.9-21enterprise.i686.rpm Also, you seem to only have 4 GB of ram. In this case you don't need the enterprise kernel unless a memory hole makes memory addressable beyond the 4 GB (4294967296 bytes) boundary. The server actually has 8GB, but it's not running an enterprise kernel now, so only 4GB is seen. The client needs the 8GB and possibly more (this server pumps out 80Mbps over a 100Base-T ethernet and will be going to a gigabit ethernet in a couple of days). I'm attaching the offending initrd image. The server actually has 8GB, but it's not running an enterprise kernel now, so only 4GB is seen. The client needs the 8GB and possibly more (this server pumps out 80Mbps over a 100Base-T ethernet and will be going to a gigabit ethernet in a couple of days). I'm attaching the offending initrd image. Created attachment 45419 [details]
The bad initrd image for the 2.4.9-21enterprise kernel.
The initrd image here is OK, this must be either an initrd decompression problem in the kernel or a bug in LILO. I would need more dmesg output, including e820 memory mapping. Also try booting with various mem= settings on the kernel command line, starting with "mem=4096M" and working up/down to see if it solves the problem. Another bootloader like GRUB (which does proper e820 memory detection) might be a good idea. I strongly recommend Red Hat Linux 7.2 over Red Hat Linux 7.1. Adding Alan so that he can look into the possibility of this being a driver bug. Alan, have you heard any bug reports about aacraid in systems using PAE? None so far. The aacraid hardware is is using 32bit DMA anyway Created attachment 45561 [details]
/var/log/dmesg from a 2.4.7-6smp boot
Created attachment 45562 [details]
The bad initrd image for the 2.4.9-21enterprise kernel.
I've attached the dmesg file from the 2.4.7-6smp boot in the hope that it may help. The server is a production box doing about 80Mbps, so I can't reboot it whenever I wish. However I do have to put an Intel E1000 gigabit interface in it today, so I can try the offending kernel again. Which options would you like me to feed the boot prompt? This initrd looks completely fine. Try booting that kernel with mem=4096M and mem=3072M Sorry it's taken so long to get back on this, but the client did NOT want me toying with the live server. He did order a second, identical system (quad Xeons at 700MHz) which arrived today. I put 6GB RAM into it and got the same boot failure (unable to load ramdisk). Rebooting with "mem=4096M" was successful. This RedHat 7.2 with all current patches (as of this morning) and the latest 2.4.9-13enterprise kernel as pulled from your update site. Is anyone working on this problem? It is STILL a hot topic here. The client is getting VERY upset. He needs the additional RAM badly. The kswapd daemon sometimes takes 90% of the CPU when running with 4GB. Are you using GRUB or LILO with Red Hat Linux 7.2? These are being booted with LILO. I'm attaching the /etc/lilo.conf file from one of the boxes. The "linux-ent" stanza is what I was trying to boot, without the "mem=4096M" command line argument. Created attachment 47820 [details]
/etc/lilo.conf file for failing boot (omit the "append="mem=4096M"" part)
Have you tried anything newer then 7.1? It's quite likely that the new kernel or grub would fix this for you. Please let us know if you've tried those things. No response to last query... Closing bug. If you're still having problems with more Red Hat 7.3 please reopen this bug. I'm not trying to step on your toes here, I'm just assuming you've found a work around or that it's fixed in more recent versions of Red Hat. |