linux - RHEL doesn't complete boot after kernel update

07
2014-07
  • Godric Seer

    I have a somewhat strange problem. I run SL6.5 (a RHEL clone) and a couple months ago updated the kernel. The kernel release notes can be found here. I updated to the 431.17.1 kernel. During boot, the boot process mostly completes, but it hangs right before the login screen appears. If I boot to the older kernel (431.11.2), everything boots fine. The 431.20.3 kernel acts just like the 431.17.1. Below is the screen when it hangs (I apologize for the quality/glare, there is no good way to take a screen cap during boot).

    enter image description here

    Note that sshd has sucessfully started at this point, so I booted into a liveCD onto one of my co-workers desktops and used ssh to connect to the computer. The connect worked fine, I was able to navigate my root file system, and even started matlab using X11 forwarding which appeared without issue.

    I have tried looking at the /var/log and don't see any major errors occuring during boots. I am wondering what I can do to sort out what is causing this, and how I might fix it.

    • Answers
  • Godric Seer

    After trying to figure out what was hanging by using ntsysv to turn off services shown in the image in the question and getting nowhere, I decided to see if it was the actual display of the login screen that caused the problem. I checked, and NVIDIA had released a new driver, so I downloaded it an booted into run-level 3 to install it. At this point I realized that the new kernel booted fine in run-level 3.

    After installing the new driver, the new kernel booted without issue. I don't know if the new driver solved it, or if rebuilding the old driver would have been sufficient (I am guessing that it would have been).


    • Related Question

    Discover linux kernel boot options
  • tzot

    Is there a cross-distribution way to know the boot parameters supplied to the kernel?


    • Related Answers
  • quack quixote

    Assuming you're asking about the options passed to the current-running kernel?

    1. If the /proc filesystem is in use, /proc/cmdline tells you exactly what options were passed to the kernel.

      $ cat /proc/cmdline  
root=UUID=3630dd43-f9f9-40b1-8a5f-72c13f2b309c ro quiet splash

    2. If there's no /proc filesystem, you can get an idea by finding the current kernel's entry in grub.conf or other bootloader configuration. (Use "uname -r" to see what kernel is currently running.) This won't tell you what WAS used to boot the current kernel, just what is NORMALLY used.

  • Ryan

    I'm guessing you're talking about the Linux Kernel, so there is a set of standard parameters which it accepts.