From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/4.77 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.16-22smp i686) Description of problem: After following the instructions on the RedHat web site to upgrade the kernel and rebooting the machine to use the new kernel, I get the following error: ... ... autorun DONE. apm: BIOS not found. request_module[block-major-8]: Root fs not mounted VFS: Cannot open root device 08:09 Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:09 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. rpm -ivh kernel-utils-2.2.19-7.0.8.i386.rpm 2. rpm -ivh kernel-smp-2.2.19-7.0.8.i686.rpm (I also tried kernel-smp-2.2.19-7.0.8.i386.rpm with the same end result) 3. vi /etc/lilo.conf : boot=/dev/sda map=/boot/map install=/boot/boot.b prompt timeout=50 linear default=linux message=/boot/message image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.19-7.0.8smp label=linux read-only root=/dev/sda9 image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.16-22smp label=linux-2.2.16 initrd=/boot/initrd-2.2.16-22smp.img read-only root=/dev/sda9 image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.16-22 label=linux-up initrd=/boot/initrd-2.2.16-22.img read-only root=/dev/sda9 4. run lilo: Added linux * Added linux-2.2.16 Added linux-up 5. Reboot Actual Results: While shutting down, 2.1.16-22smp shows errors about /dev/pts being in use and /home being busy, 3 times each. But, the shutdown then proceeds as normal. Upon boot up, everything looks normal until the following is displayed ... autorun DONE. apm: BIOS not found. request_module[block-major-8]: Root fs not mounted VFS: Cannot open root device 08:09 Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:09 Expected Results: The 2.2.19smp kernel should have booted. Additional info:
2 steps missing: mkinitrd /boot/initrd-2.2.19-7.0.8smp.img 2.2.19-7.0.8smp and adding an initrd line with that filename to the kernel in lilo.conf (just copy the 2.2.16 one and change the filename) Could you try that and report if that fixes it ?
Hello, That did the trick. I don't know how I missed that (twice) in the instructions at http://www.redhat.com/support/docs/howto/kernel-upgrade/kernel-upgrade.html. I guess I wasn't worried about the initrd not being in lilo.conf, because I have not used it (on my other machines) since I can remember - and I've been a linux user since 0.99. Thanks for the quick response! jcmain
Well, you only need an initrd if your rootfs is SCSI and SCSI is a module, as it is in RHL 7.1. Anyway, I'll close this bug as "NOTABUG" as the docs are right and it works ;)