FC6->FC7 Kernel Panic

[Tod]

Howard Wilkinson wrote:
>   Tod wrote:
>> Michael Schwendt wrote:
>>> On Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:49:19 -0400, Tod wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm attempting to upgrade one of my servers from FC6-FC7 on the way 
>>>> to FC8.  I followed all the recommendations including the disk 
>>>> LABELs, etc and everything seemed to work.  But once I rebooted I 
>>>> got a kernel panic because my /boot directory can't be found.
>>>>
>>>> I have two IDE drives both LVM managed except for a small boot 
>>>> partition on the first drive.  I can boot back to FC6 just fine, but 
>>>> get the kernel panic when I try the FC7 kernel.  My grub.conf looks 
>>>> like this:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> # grub.conf generated by anaconda
>>>> #
>>>> # Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to 
>>>> this file
>>>> # NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
>>>> #          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
>>>> #          root (hd0,0)
>>>> #          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
>>>> #          initrd /initrd-version.img
>>>> #boot=/dev/hda
>>>> default=0
>>>> timeout=5
>>>> splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
>>>> hiddenmenu
>>>> title Fedora (2.6.23.15-80.fc7)
>>>>          root (hd0,0)
>>>>          kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.23.15-80.fc7 ro root=LABEL=/boot
>>>>          initrd /initrd-2.6.23.15-80.fc7.img
>>>
>>> root=LABEL=/boot  clearly is wrong. The kernel root= parameter specifies
>>> the system's root partition, but LABEL=/boot points to your
>>> /boot partition instead, /dev/sda1 = (hd0,0).
>>
>>
>> Yes my mistake, see below.
>>
>>
>>>
>>>> title Fedora Core (2.6.22.14-72.fc6)
>>>>          root (hd0,0)
>>>>          kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.22.14-72.fc6 ro 
>>>> root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 hdc=ide_scsi
>>>>          initrd /initrd-2.6.22.14-72.fc6.img
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> After the first time I booted I changed the FC7 kernel line, it 
>>>> originally looked the same as the FC6 line.  That didn't help. 
>>>
>>> That's strange.
>>
>> I guess it would be if I could type.  The /boot label thing was just 
>> wrong, I don't know where I picked that up from.  The original fc7 
>> kernel line was:
>>
>> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.23.15-80.fc7 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 
>> hdc=ide_scsi
>>
>> ... very _similar_ to the original fc6 line.
>>
>>
>> Its funny because the only thing that isn't volume managed is the 
>> /boot partition, which is labeled.  My understanding was that LVM 
>> managed partitions don't require labeling.
>>
>> I also thought I read that all drives were now treated as SCSI drives. 
>> With that in mind I tried removing hdc=ide_scsi to see if that would 
>> make any difference.  That didn't really help either.  But I can still 
>> boot up FC6 without a problem.
>>
>> If anybody has any ideas I'd certainly appreciate it.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
> There was a problem with the dependency on LVM and/or the RAID drivers 
> in the kernel installation on FC7, you had to rebuild the initrd to get 
> the right drivers available on boot so that the root partition could be 
> activated. I got round this by rebuilding initrd in the %post section of 
> the kickstart before rebooting. You should be able to get round it by 
> reinstalling the kernel package, it should detect the correct drivers 
> now the system is built! Alternatively run mkinitrd for the new kernel 
> and then reboot!

Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

I'm burning the FC7 rescue image now to try mkinitrd.  I almost wonder 
if it wouldn't just be better to yum my way up to FC8 instead?  I can 
still boot to FC6 and getting to the latest release was my ultimate goal 
anyway...


Tod