[syslinux] Syslinux 5.00 - Doesn't boot my system / Not passing the kernel options to the kernel?

[Igor Sverkos]

Hi,

I encounter a problem with Syslinux 5.00 I cannot really describe. So I
created two small videos:

Booting with Syslinux 5.00 (1.3 MB):
<https://www.dropbox.com/s/b6g8cdf2t9v48c6/boot-syslinux5-fail.mp4>


How I fixed the problem by downgrading to Syslinux 4.06 and how booting
should look like (6.5 MB):
<https://www.dropbox.com/s/lt7cpgfm0qvqtba/boot-syslinux5-how-i-fixed-it.mp4>


System configuration:
=====================
The system has two disks. Partitioned like:

testVM ~ # gdisk -l /dev/sda
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.5

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sda: 41943040 sectors, 20.0 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 63DE1BD4-4135-4108-8197-B1DADD2DE462
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 41943006
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2014 sectors (1007.0 KiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048          264191   128.0 MiB   FD00  Boot
   2          264192        41943006   19.9 GiB    FD00  Bank


The partitions are part of a mdraid setup:

testVM ~ # cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10]
md1 : active raid1 sda2[0] sdb2[1]
      20838311 blocks super 1.2 [2/2] [UU]

md0 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdb1[1]
      131060 blocks super 1.0 [2/2] [UU]


sda1/sdb1 = /dev/md0 -> /boot (ext4)
sda2/sdb2 = /dev/md1 -> Luks encrypted LVM2 container with / and other
volumes


This is how I installed Syslinux 5.00:
1) mkdir /boot/syslinux

2) extlinux --install --raid /boot/syslinux

3) cd /boot/syslinux && cp -i /usr/share/syslinux/*.c32 .
(I didn't overwrite "ldlinux.c32", which was created by extlinux
--install...)

4) My /boot/syslinux/extlinux.conf looks like

# This configuration file was generated automatically by gen-extlinuxconf.

TIMEOUT 60
UI menu.c32

MENU TITLE Boot Menu
MENU COLOR title        1;37;40
MENU COLOR border       30;40
MENU COLOR unsel        37;40

LABEL kernel1_bzImage-latest
        MENU LABEL Gentoo Linux Latest
        LINUX /kernel-genkernel-x86_64-3.7.1
        INITRD /initramfs-genkernel-x86_64-3.7.1
        APPEND domdadm dolvm video=1024x768
crypt_root=UUID=6edcbea7-bb2c-4e22-9839-9f682f6fd51f
real_root=UUID=06e2ba17-c88a-4d13-bfa0-2dd0845ede6c
root=UUID=06e2ba17-c88a-4d13-bfa0-2dd0845ede6c rootfs=ext4


I tested a lot of things, but I don't really know what the problem with
Syslinux 5.00 is. Seems like it has problems with the RAID. I think
Syslinux 5.00 don't pass the kernel options to the kernel... that's why
the initramfs's init script doesn't assemble the RAID, don't prompt to
enter the passphrase... like you can see in the second video.


BTW: Syslinux 5.00 still cannot boot from mdraid metadata 1.2.

-- 
Regards,
Igor