[CentOS] Now I can't shutdown [was: Screen blanks afteral p (Centos 5)]

[Itay]

On Wed, 16 May 2007, William L. Maltby wrote:

> Date: Wed, 16 May 2007 17:56:29 -0400
> From: William L. Maltby <CentOS4Bill at triad.rr.com>
> Reply-To: CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org>
> To: CentOS General List <centos at centos.org>
> Subject: Re: [CentOS] Re: Now I can't shutdown [was: Screen blanks afteral
>     	setup (Centos 5)]
> 
> On Wed, 2007-05-16 at 21:10 +0300, Itay wrote:
>
>> ** I failed to mention earlier that the media check prior to
>> installation *failed*.  I decided to go on with the installation
>> because my own experience so far, and others', showed that
>> failure does not necessarily imply bad media.  But see below.
>
> Based on investigation I've done in response to the thread here,
>
>    http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2007-April/079718.html
>
> and the advice by several in that thread, you need to have padding on
> the media. I'm authoring a "SOLVED" message for that thread, but haven't
> completed my tests.
>
[snip]
>
> Use one of the padding methods mentioned in that thread and you should
> be OK and the errors should disappear.

*panic*

Bill, thank you for the detailed reply.

I tried the padding technique - the media errors were gone; 
kernel panic - stayed.  I hope that you or others may help me 
with this.

Here is what I did:

1 Burnt i386 DVD using the padding method offered by Johnny Hughes
   http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2007-April/079828.html
   (Check sum OK.)

2 Booted to install
   + Media check OK
   + Finished installation w/o noticable problems
     - This time there were no error messages about i/o problems, bad
       sectors, etc.
     - anaconda.log had some warning messages regarding to some missing
       /etc, /usr, and few libs.  (Similar to 1st installation.)
   + Rebooted from installer
   + Expected Setup Agent.  Got *kernel panic* instead.
   + Second and third reboot have landed me in text-mode Setup Agent.

3 I tried several things, each one of them ended in *kernel panic*
   either before logging in as root, or some minutes after.  The panic
   appeared after idling the machine for some time.

4 A couple of strange things
   + I have found out that the default run level was set to 3.
     When, as a root I tried 'telinit 5', the machine responded with a
     blank screen.  I had to reset.
   + Rebooting the machine was accompanied with messages regarding
     ntp/clock skew.  Later, I have found out that I have lost the
     network connection, probably while playing with the
     installation, so this probably explains the clock skew.
     Am not sure if this has any relevance.
   + At no point I was prompted to setup a non-root user.

5 For each crash / kernel panic I got a screen-load of trace and other
   cryptic output.  Each time, so it seems, the output was different.
   *Q* Is there a way to dump those messages into a file?

6 Only suspicious thing I have found in /var/log/messages was lines
   like this

May 19 11:27:36 bilbo kernel: ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
May 19 11:27:36 bilbo kernel: ata1.00: tag 0 cmd 0xb0 Emask 0x1 stat 0x51 err 0x4 (device error)
May 19 11:27:36 bilbo kernel: ata1: EH complete

7 Also, /var/log/secure had these errors - I believe for every reboot.

...
May 19 11:25:30 bilbo login: ROOT LOGIN ON tty1
May 19 11:26:06 bilbo login: pam_unix(login:session): session closed for user root
May 19 11:26:09 bilbo sshd[2677]: Received signal 15; terminating.
May 19 11:27:26 bilbo sshd[2687]: Server listening on :: port 22.
May 19 11:27:26 bilbo sshd[2687]: error: Bind to port 22 on 0.0.0.0 failed: Address already in use.
May 19 11:29:51 bilbo login: pam_unix(login:session): session opened for user root by LOGIN(uid=0)
May 19 11:29:51 bilbo login: pam_selinux(login:session): Warning!  Could not get new context for /dev/tty1, not relabeling: Invalid argument
May 19 11:29:51 bilbo login: pam_selinux(login:session): usercon=(null), prev_context=system_u:object_r:tty_device_t
May 19 11:29:51 bilbo login: ROOT LOGIN ON tty1

> My *guess* is that the application related errors you reported may be a
> result of certain installation steps terminating early due to the false
> I/O errors reported by the kernel/driver(s).
>
> HTH
> --
> Bill

Any recommendation how to proceed?
(The most pressing question: is it the hardware? Should I take 
the box back to the seller?)

Many thanks.

-- 
   Itay Furman  <centos at nospammail.net>
--