[TCLUG] Dell 1750 not booting -- need suggestions

[Tim Wilson]

Hey everyone,

I've got a Dell 1750 server running Debian that we use here at school. It's
a dual-Xeon box with RAID.

I decided to give a 2.6 kernel a try on this server so I built the kernel
and configured lilo.conf to boot the new kernel. Actually, I used Debian's
make-kpkg tool to do most of the heavy lifting. Having learned my lesson
many years ago when I built my first custom kernel, I made sure that the old
working kernel was still an option in my LILO config.

Unfortunately, neither kernel boots now. I'm getting:

VFS: Cannot open root device "sda1" or 08:01
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:01

I'd put a different "root=" boot option in there, but I'm not sure which
partition holds the root. My install notes are nowhere to be found, and I'm
not even sure that this machine uses the standard /dev/sdax naming given
that's it's using a RAID controller.

Anyone have a suggestion? I'm at a loss right now.

-Tim
--
Tim Wilson
Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
Educational technology guy, Linux and OS X fan, Grad. student, Daddy
mailto: ***@visi.com aim: tis270 public key: 0x8C0F8813


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[meierjo]

software RAID? If so did you compile the Kernel with RAID support?


if hardware Raid - same question - drivers for the hw compiled into
the kernel????


my raid devices are /dev/md0, md1 .....

i'll keep thinking and post more ....

Post by Tim Wilson
Hey everyone,
I've got a Dell 1750 server running Debian that we use here at school. It's
a dual-Xeon box with RAID.
I decided to give a 2.6 kernel a try on this server so I built the kernel
and configured lilo.conf to boot the new kernel. Actually, I used Debian's
make-kpkg tool to do most of the heavy lifting. Having learned my lesson
many years ago when I built my first custom kernel, I made sure that the old
working kernel was still an option in my LILO config.
VFS: Cannot open root device "sda1" or 08:01
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:01
I'd put a different "root=" boot option in there, but I'm not sure which
partition holds the root. My install notes are nowhere to be found, and I'm
not even sure that this machine uses the standard /dev/sdax naming given
that's it's using a RAID controller.
Anyone have a suggestion? I'm at a loss right now.
-Tim
--
Tim Wilson
Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
Educational technology guy, Linux and OS X fan, Grad. student, Daddy
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[Adam]

What kind of RAID controller is it? My dell poweredge 2400 has a AMI
PERC2/DC raid card in it and a vanilla kernel on gentoo sees it as
/dev/sda. I'd double check to make sure you have the driver for the
controller compiled into the kernel.

Adam

Post by meierjo
software RAID? If so did you compile the Kernel with RAID support?
if hardware Raid - same question - drivers for the hw compiled into
the kernel????
my raid devices are /dev/md0, md1 .....
i'll keep thinking and post more ....

Post by Tim Wilson
Hey everyone,
I've got a Dell 1750 server running Debian that we use here at school. It's
a dual-Xeon box with RAID.
I decided to give a 2.6 kernel a try on this server so I built the kernel
and configured lilo.conf to boot the new kernel. Actually, I used Debian's
make-kpkg tool to do most of the heavy lifting. Having learned my lesson
many years ago when I built my first custom kernel, I made sure that the old
working kernel was still an option in my LILO config.
VFS: Cannot open root device "sda1" or 08:01
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:01
I'd put a different "root=" boot option in there, but I'm not sure which
partition holds the root. My install notes are nowhere to be found, and I'm
not even sure that this machine uses the standard /dev/sdax naming given
that's it's using a RAID controller.
Anyone have a suggestion? I'm at a loss right now.
-Tim
--
Tim Wilson
Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
Educational technology guy, Linux and OS X fan, Grad. student, Daddy
_______________________________________________
TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
Help beta test TCLUG's potential new home: http://plone.mn-linux.org
Got pictures for TCLUG? Beta test http://plone.mn-linux.org/gallery
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_______________________________________________
TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
Help beta test TCLUG's potential new home: http://plone.mn-linux.org
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[Tim Wilson]

Post by Adam
What kind of RAID controller is it? My dell poweredge 2400 has a AMI
PERC2/DC raid card in it and a vanilla kernel on gentoo sees it as
/dev/sda. I'd double check to make sure you have the driver for the
controller compiled into the kernel.

Aha! I've got it whooped.

It turns out that in the installation process for the new kernel image that
I created. A previous (and failed) attempt to compile a kernel for this
machine was installed as LinuxOLD (the one that's supposed to work)
alongside my new one. The result was that I had two kernels that didn't work
available to me. The proper driver wasn't installed in the kernel so that's
why it couldn't see the RAID array.

The solution was to boot the custom Debian install CD with the correct
drivers on it. I typed the following at the install cd prompt

# rescue root=/dev/sda3

That install CD then booted up the system and all daemons started up
properly. I fixed /etc/lilo.conf and all is well.

Whew! Thanks for the help.

-Tim
--
Tim Wilson
Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
Educational technology guy, Linux and OS X fan, Grad. student, Daddy
mailto: ***@visi.com aim: tis270 public key: 0x8C0F8813


_______________________________________________
TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
Help beta test TCLUG's potential new home: http://plone.mn-linux.org
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tclug-***@mn-linux.org
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[Scot Jenkins]

Post by Tim Wilson
Aha! I've got it whooped.
It turns out that in the installation process for the new kernel image that
I created. A previous (and failed) attempt to compile a kernel for this
machine was installed as LinuxOLD (the one that's supposed to work)
alongside my new one. The result was that I had two kernels that didn't work
available to me. The proper driver wasn't installed in the kernel so that's
why it couldn't see the RAID array.
The solution was to boot the custom Debian install CD with the correct
drivers on it. I typed the following at the install cd prompt
# rescue root=/dev/sda3
That install CD then booted up the system and all daemons started up
properly. I fixed /etc/lilo.conf and all is well.

A late reply here, but I've found having a Knoppix cdrom can be really
handy for identifying hardware (such as your raid controller) or for
figuring out which partition is the / (root) partition.

[Tim Wilson]

Post by Scot Jenkins
A late reply here, but I've found having a Knoppix cdrom can be really
handy for identifying hardware (such as your raid controller) or for
figuring out which partition is the / (root) partition.

Unfortunately in my case, the Knoppix CD I used didn't seem to detect the
RAID hardware in this system. It didn't do much good.

On a related note...

The Knoppix CD does a fantastic job of setting up a text-only environment
with perfectly sized text, good color combinations, and a VESA framebuffer.
How can I figure out the settings that Knoppix is using so I can apply them
to this server? Setting up a nice text-only environment isn't something I've
delved into much before.

-Tim
--
Tim Wilson
Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
Educational technology guy, Linux and OS X fan, Grad. student, Daddy
mailto: ***@visi.com aim: tis270 public key: 0x8C0F8813


_______________________________________________
TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
Help beta test TCLUG's potential new home: http://plone.mn-linux.org
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[Scot Jenkins]

Post by Tim Wilson

Post by Scot Jenkins
A late reply here, but I've found having a Knoppix cdrom can be really
handy for identifying hardware (such as your raid controller) or for
figuring out which partition is the / (root) partition.

Unfortunately in my case, the Knoppix CD I used didn't seem to detect the
RAID hardware in this system. It didn't do much good.
On a related note...
The Knoppix CD does a fantastic job of setting up a text-only environment
with perfectly sized text, good color combinations, and a VESA framebuffer.
How can I figure out the settings that Knoppix is using so I can apply them
to this server? Setting up a nice text-only environment isn't something I've
delved into much before.

Try mounting the knoppix cdrom and poking around under /etc. Surely
there's some config file magic going on in there. I'd start with
/etc/profile, /etc/default(s)/*, /etc/init.d/*.

Personally, I'm happy with the non-framebuffer 80x25 consoles, but I
value my eyesight.

"Screen sizes is inversely proportional to font size."
(the bigger the monitors are, the smaller the fonts.)