[CentOS] kernel panic/abort during boot

[fred smith]

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 07:56:51PM -0700, Corey Henderson wrote:
> On 12/21/2011 7:44 PM, fred smith wrote:
> > Just did an in-place update from 6.1 to 6.2 on my eeepc 901 (Atom CPU).
> >
> > during boot, (if I hit ESC to see the boot messages) it says "starging udev"
> > then nothing else for a few seconds, then a huge register dump scrolls
> > by. it's too big to see the beginning of it.
> >
> > If I boot from the prior kernel and look in /var/log/messages, I don't
> > see any evidence of the failed boot.
> >
> > I've seen the other thread titled "kernel panic", and it seems to be
> > due to a missing initramfs, but there is an initramfs for 2.6.32-220.el6
> > already in /boot, so I don't think that would be the problem.
> >
> > Can anyone suggest how I would isolate what's going on here?
> >
> 
> Take a peek at what is inside the initramfs file:
> 
> ~ $ mkdir initramfs
> ~ $ cd initramfs/
> ~/initramfs $ gzip -d < /boot/initramfs-2.6.32-220.el6.x86_64.img | cpio -id
> 73012 blocks
> ~/initramfs $ ls
> bin  cmdline  dev  dracut-004-256.el6  emergency  etc  init  initqueue 
> initqueue-finished  initqueue-settled  initqueue-timeout  lib  lib64 
> mount  pre-pivot  pre-trigger  pre-udev  proc  sbin  sys  sysroot  tmp 
> usr  var
> ~/initramfs $ find lib/modules -name '*.ko'
> <snip>
> 
> If a module that is required to mount your system (ext3/4, dm_dm-raid, 
> etc - very system dependent) isn't in there, then the system won't be 
> able to boot. Sometimes they don't get added automatically, for whatever 
> reason. If you're able to identify the missing driver, edit this file:
> 
> /etc/dracut.conf
> 
> And add a line like this:
> 
> add_drivers+="name-of-driver"
> 
> Then re-run dracut. If you don't know how to do that, then you probably 
> should just rpm -e that kernel package, then re-install it.
> 
> Hope this helps.

Corey, would it be a ligitimate comparison to unpack both the initramfs
for the new kernel and for the most recent prior one, then compare the
list of kernel modules?

thanks for the suggestion!

-- 
---- Fred Smith -- fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us -----------------------------
    "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of
     heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."
------------------------------ Matthew 7:21 (niv) -----------------------------