This weekend I was thinking that the device /dev/console led to the error:

Warning: unable to open an initial console.
Kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel

I was hoping it was something simple like wrong major/minor number, owner and group, or permissions. I created a new device with mknod, but that didn’t do it. Oddly, Debian 3.1 running in nfs boots the cube, but Debian 3.1 running on disk does not. I also noticed that disk Debian had ttyS0-5, but nfs Debian had none so I deleted them. No luck. They must have been created when I used MAKEDEV to create the /dev/hda devices.

Perhaps the kernel doesn’t load a console driver. Since I’m using a Cobalt kernel rpm that I ran alien on, I doubt that is the case. I have to admit I have no idea how init levels get passed to a kernel that isn’t loaded by a boot loader. The Qube3, and other Qubes, boot by loading an inital ROM kernel which, in turn, boots the kernel from disk (or nfs). So, the ROM kernel is the boot loader. Very unusual.

For reference, I’ve included the output from the Cobalt OS boot below.

Sun Cobalt - Smaller, Bluer, Better, and Free
Firmware version 2.10.3-ext3

Current date: Jan 10 12:12:36 UTC 2007
ROM build info: Thu Mar 11 08:51:36 MST 2004 .
System serial number: S2250518
System type: 3000 series system, Version 2 board
Silicon serial number: 8e000008a7189d01
Monitor: 153536 bytes
Memory: 512 MB
CPU: 1 processor(s) detected
CPU 0: AuthenticAMD 448MHz (4.5 x 100MHz host bus) [BSP]
Initializing flash: done
Flash Bank 0: AMD AM29F080B 1024KB (01:d5)
Flash Bank 1: not installed.
Mounting ROM fs: done
Initializing PCI: done
Initializing ethernet: 2 controller(s) found
Initializing IDE: found ALI M5229 at 00:78
spinning up second channel: done
scanning ide0: master
scanning ide1:
IDE: stabilizing spinup: 100%
Checking Memory: done

Press spacebar to enter ROM mode
Booting default method - From disk

First stage kernel (Linux): Decompressing - done
ERROR: cannot relocate with filesize 0
Second stage kernel: Decompressing - done
Linux version 2.2.16C37_III (root@kbuild.sfbay.sun.com) (gcc version
egcs-2.91.3
Ignoring bogus EBDA pointer 397000
Detected 448219 kHz processor.
Pending 0×00
Calibrating delay loop… 894.57 BogoMIPS
Memory: 517040k/524288k available (1252k kernel code, 412k reserved,
5520k data)
Dentry hash table entries: 65536 (order 7, 512k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 524288 (order 9, 2048k)
Page cache hash table entries: 131072 (order 7, 512k)
VFS: Diskquotas version dquot_6.4.0 initialized
CPU: L1 I Cache: 32K L1 D Cache: 32K
CPU: L2 Cache: 128K
CPU: AMD AMD-K6(tm)-III Processor stepping 04
Checking 386/387 coupling… OK, FPU using exception 16 error reporting.
Checking ‘hlt’ instruction… OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0 for Linux NET4.0.
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 524288 bhash 65536)
Initializing RT netlink socket
Starting kswapd v 1.6
Cobalt watchdog v1.4 enabled
Cobalt I2C bus initialized
Cobalt temperature sensor v1.4 enabled
Serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0×03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
keyboard: Timeout - AT keyboard not present?
keyboard: Timeout - AT keyboard not present?
ttyS01 at 0×02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
Real Time Clock Driver v1.09
lcd: Cobalt LCD Driver v3.12
serialnumber: Version 1.9 initialized. Serial number=8e000008a7189d01.
Copyright (c)1994-2000 Axent Technologies, Inc.
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 6.30
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
ALI15X3: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 78
ALI15X3: chipset revision 193
ALI15X3: 100% native mode on irq 14
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xfdd0-0xfdd7, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xfdd8-0xfddf, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA
hda: ST320410A, SN=3FG2HZSS, FWREV=3.39, ATA DISK drive
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
ide0 at 0xfdf8-0xfdff,0xfdf6 on irq 14
hda: ST320410A, 19092MB w/2048kB Cache, CHS=38792/16/63, UDMA(33)
md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MAX_REAL=12
translucent personality registered
linear personality registered
raid0 personality registered
raid1 personality registered
raid5 personality registered
raid5: measuring checksumming speed
raid5: MMX detected, trying high-speed MMX checksum routines
pII_mmx : 872.871 MB/sec
p5_mmx : 883.158 MB/sec
8regs : 429.768 MB/sec
32regs : 281.940 MB/sec
using fastest function: p5_mmx (883.158 MB/sec)
sym53c8xx: at PCI bus 0, device 14, function 0
sym53c8xx: 53c875 detected
sym53c875-0: rev 0×4 on pci bus 0 device 14 function 0 irq 12
sym53c875-0: ID 7, Fast-20, Parity Checking
scsi0 : sym53c8xx-1.7.3a-20010304
scsi : 1 host.
scsi : detected total.
md.c: sizeof(mdp_super_t) = 4096
Partition check:
hda: hda1 hda2 < hda5 hda6 > hda3 hda4
autodetecting RAID arrays
autorun …
… autorun DONE.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 64k freed
INIT: version 2.77 booting
Activating swap partitions Adding Swap: 131532k swap-space (priority -1)

Setting hostname localhost
Checking root filesystem
e2fsck 1.18, 11-Nov-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
/dev/hda1: clean, 36538/768544 files, 652312/1536191 blocks
ok
mount: proc already mounted
Remounting root filesystem in read-write mode
Finding module dependencies
Starting up RAID devices…

– System configuration……….. /etc/raidtab

– System status……………… /proc/mdstat

– RAID status……………….. OK

Checking filesystems
e2fsck 1.18, 11-Nov-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
/dev/hda3: clean, 220/128016 files, 65844/512064 blocks
e2fsck 1.18, 11-Nov-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
/dev/hda4: clean, 3428/4335616 files, 876154/17340624 blocks
ok
Mounting local filesystems
Setting clock (utc): Wed Jan 10 07:14:18 EST 2007 Wed Jan 10 07:14:18
EST 2007

Enabling swap space
INIT: Entering runlevel: 3
Starting system logger: syslogd
Starting kernel logger: klogd
Starting quota 11 boots since last quotacheck
Checking quotas. This may take some time.
Scanning /dev/hda4 [/home] done
Checked 1535 directories and 1885 files
Using quotafile /home/quota.user
Using quotafile /home/quota.group
Done.
Turning on quota.
/dev/hda4: group quotas turned on
/dev/hda4: user quotas turned on

Starting cced: cced
Running CCE constructors:
Starting ipchains Loading ipchains rules: ok

Starting network Disabling IPv4 packet forwarding.
ifconfig lo 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0 broadcast 127.255.255.255
ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.107 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255
Host not found, try again.
Trying DHCP on eth1…Internet Software Consortium DHCP Client 2.0
Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 The Internet Software Consortium.
All rights reserved.

Please contribute if you find this software useful.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/dhcp-contrib.html

Listening on LPF/eth1/00:10:e0:03:cd:d1
Sending on LPF/eth1/00:10:e0:03:cd:d1
Sending on Socket/fallback/fallback-net
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
receive_packet failed on eth1: Network is down
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
DHCPOFFER from 192.168.0.1
DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPACK from 192.168.0.1
HELLO IN CONVERT -a 192.168.0.198 -m 255.255.255.0 -g 192.168.0.1 -h -d
-s 19
SETUP-NETWORK: 192.168.0.198 / 255.255.255.0 Gateway: 192.168.0.1
bound to 192.168.0.198 — renewal in 302400 seconds.
ifconfig eth1 192.168.0.198 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255

Starting random Initializing random number generator…

Starting cron daemon: crond
Starting INET services: inetd
Starting sshd Starting sshd: ok

$Starting lpd: lpd
Starting nfsfs Mounting remote filesystems.

Starting admserv Starting admin web server: ahttpd

Starting httpd Setting up Web Service: httpd

Starting MySQL:
Starting lcdsleep.init
Starting portfw Loading portfw rules: ok

Starting local Using /lib/modules/2.2.16C37_III/ipv4/ip_masq_ftp.o
Using /lib/modules/2.2.16C37_III/usb/usbcore.o
Using /lib/modules/2.2.16C37_III/usb/usb-ohci.o
Using /lib/modules/2.2.16C37_III/usb/printer.o

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 at 5:50 am and is filed under qube. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.