Bug 160833
| Summary: | The /dev/cpu/microcode node required by the microcode_ctl initscript is not created | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Product: | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 | Reporter: | Jean-Philippe Côté <webmaster> | ||||||
| Component: | kernel-utils | Assignee: | Dave Jones <davej> | ||||||
| Status: | CLOSED ERRATA | QA Contact: | Brian Brock <bbrock> | ||||||
| Severity: | medium | Docs Contact: | |||||||
| Priority: | medium | ||||||||
| Version: | 4.0 | CC: | brianm, cch1, dvd, jos, kamo, pb, pfrields, ralston, vvalenti | ||||||
| Target Milestone: | --- | ||||||||
| Target Release: | --- | ||||||||
| Hardware: | i386 | ||||||||
| OS: | Linux | ||||||||
| Whiteboard: | |||||||||
| Fixed In Version: | RHBA-2005-534 | Doc Type: | Bug Fix | ||||||
| Doc Text: | Story Points: | --- | |||||||
| Clone Of: | Environment: | ||||||||
| Last Closed: | 2005-10-05 14:41:58 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: | |||||||||
| Bug Depends On: | |||||||||
| Bug Blocks: | 156322 | ||||||||
| Attachments: |
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A similar bug was reported for FedoraCore 3 (#157672). That's probably where the problem stems from. Created attachment 116092 [details]
patch for /etc/rc.d/init.d/microcode_ctl
Nope, that's not the problem.
In RHEL4 U1, udev correctly creates the /etc/cpu/microcode device file when the
microcode module is loaded. The problem is that /etc/rc.d/init.d/microcode_ctl
tests for the presence of the device file *before* it attempts to modprobe the
microcode module. As a result, if the microcode module isn't already loaded
(and it won't be, if the system's booting up), /etc/rc.d/init.d/microcode_ctl
doesn't find the /etc/cpu/microcode device file, and bombs out.
Here's a patch for /etc/rc.d/init.d/microcode_ctl that fixes the problem. (I
think this operation ordering makes the most sense.)
I've tried this patch, but I am still getting the same microcode device /dev/cpu/microcode doesn't exist? error on boot. It seems there is a significant delay (more than 3 seconds) in udev creating the device files, so I'm making the script sleep for 4 seconds after the modprobe command. I'm sure there's a more efficient way to handle this. Using: udev-039-10.8.EL4 hotplug-2004_04_01-7.5 I think the significant delay is startup-specific. If you run "modprobe microcode" on quiescent system, it only takes a fraction of a second for the device node to appear. Probably a better way to handle it is to keep running "usleep 250000" until the device node appears, with a reasonable timeout (e.g., 10 seconds) before aborting. This happen to me also here on an RHEL4 system.
2 issues:
1) without the patch #116092, such message is been shown, without, it quits
quietly which is ok, because it's an Athlon CPU.
2) related to #9: there is already a delay included in the script:
lt=0
while [ ! -c $DEVICE ]; do
lt=$[lt+1];
[ $lt -gt 5 ] && break;
sleep 1;
done
Anyway, looks like since introducing udev and its asynchron device creation this
rises up to a common problem, it hit me also loading a framebuffer module and
try to execute fbset after the modprobe call in a script...
I have a similar problem in FC4 (upgraded from FC3 if that is relevant). I was able to fix this issue on FC4 by creating the executable file named /etc/sysconfig/modules/microcode.modules with the following content: #!/bin/sh /sbin/modprobe microcode After that microcode_ctl works fine when booting up. *** Bug 166210 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. *** An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on the solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2005-534.html Created attachment 120554 [details]
patch for microde_ctl, checks sufficient delay
The delay of 5 seconds is insufficient on my Dell PowerEdge 1850
with RHEL ES4 update2 (includes kernel-utils-2.4-13.1.69).
I tried several times with this patch, it needs 11 seconds.
I also have a Dell PowerEdge 1850 and 5 seconds wasn't enough. With kamo's patch, I did three test boots and it took either 9 or 10 seconds. The 1850 has two Intel Xeon 3.2Ghz CPUs. I also have a PowerEdge 850 and it seems to work fine on that with the 5 second delay. |
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4 Description of problem: If I run the following command: service microcode_ctl start I get an error saying that /dev/cpu/microcode isn't available. This, most notably, happens at boot up. If I add the following lines to the initscript, everything works fine: mkdir -p `dirname $DEVICE` mknod -m 600 $DEVICE c 10 184 Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): kernel-utils 2.4 13.1.66 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: service microcode_ctl start Additional info: