Kernel panic in 2.6.11-1.35_FC3 at i686

[Dan Fruehauf]

On Fri, 2005-07-15 at 01:54 +0200, Johannes Findeisen wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 10:14 +0300, Dan Fruehauf wrote:
> > On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 02:14 +0200, Johannes Findeisen wrote:
> > > Hello all,
> > > 
> > > just got this kernel panic right after updating Fedora core 3 to
> > > 2.6.11-1.35_FC3. I am running Fedora Core 3 for x86 on an AMD64 machine
> > > - if this helps?. Since i have no serial console i could not copy and
> > > paste the panic message, so i have made a photo which you can see at:
> > > 
> > > http://hanez.org/images/content/kernelpanic.jpg
> > > 
> > > The following package is what i am talking about: 
> > > 
> > > kernel-2.6.11-1.35_FC3.i686.rpm
> > > 
> > > Please tell me how i could debug such things better in the future. I
> > > really want to understand the way developers are handling this.
> > > 
> > Johannes,
> > This looks like your kernel is unable to mount your root filesystem.
> > I'd suggest trying to re-run mkinitrd and create one suitable for your
> > system.
> > Before the panic you can see that initrd has troubles switching to your
> > new root that perhaps wasn't mounted successfully.
> > 
> > I got something similar with a Xen0 kernel under VMWare while running
> > with a SCSI disk. The driver wasn't loaded well and a similar panic
> > followed.
> 
> Hello Dan,
> 
> sorry for replying late. I didn't had enough time the last days. I have
> created a new initial ramdisc and got the same error as above.
> 
> My main confusion is: How will developers debug this issue? 
> 
> I could set up a serial console for logging debug output but is this the
> right way?
> 
> I definitely not have destroyed my system because of not enough
> knowledge. I have simply updated my Kernel using the graphical update
> tool. Okay, i have installed many packages from other repositories but
> not kernel related and i hope no system related packages... ;-)
> 
> Could someone give me a hint how i could find out what the problem is or
> should i post a bugreport?
> 
> Sorry, i never have posted kernel related bugs in the last years. I am
> really interested how things are handled the right way, before posting
> things to bugzilla that aren't bugs, or where i can get more information
> about the problem before posting?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> -- 
> Johannes Findeisen
> 

Jonannes,
Unfortunately I'm not a kernel developer, but even though i could give
you some guidelines.
About your specific panic - I would first try and reconfigure my initrd
and perhaps add some debug messages to it's startup script to see where
this 'mount failed' message is coming from and why...
I would suggest configuring a netdump server
(http://www.redhat.com/support/wpapers/redhat/netdump/index.html) - but
that is a little more relevant for a running, operational system which
is not what we have at this time.

So I would go with the first one - open your initrd image - see that
things are sane there, might be an initrd bug after all...
Perhaps if your initrd image isn't that big you could also post it on
the list (or at least send me it for a review).

Oh - and if you don't need initrd - try running without it :)

Regards,
-- 
Dan Fruehauf
Matrix IT, Linux Consulting