[syslinux] Fedora 21 extlinux 6.03 boot failure

Fri Jul 3 09:04:22 PDT 2015

Hi,

On Fri, Jul 03, 2015 at 06:41:41PM +0300, Ady via Syslinux wrote:
> Are the other systems (those that are booting OK) also attached to a serial 
> console?

Yes.

> Is there any other output method available (I mean, other than the serial console)?

I can also attach a VGA display to the system, but the serial console output
is nice because it's logged.

> What happens when not using the serial output (while adapting the syslinux.cfg
> accordingly)?

I will try that.

> Could you please post the entire syslinux.cfg (or extlinux.conf) corresponding to 
> the failing machine?

[hero at ti81 ~]$ cat /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
serial 0 57600 3
ui menu.c32
menu title Telemetry ExtLinux Boot Menu
timeout 100

label Linux1
    menu label Fedora21-x86_64 4.0.5-200.fc21
    kernel /vmlinuz-4.0.5-200.fc21.x86_64
    append ro panic=10 rd.dm=0 rd.luks=0 rd.plymouth=0 vconsole.keymap=us vconsole.font=latarcyrheb-sun16 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=C root=UUID=ff7ec6df-6e68-4887-8c9a-edcdc15a7f83 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,57600
    initrd /initramfs-4.0.5-200.fc21.x86_64.img
    menu default

label Linux2
    menu label Fedora21-x86_64 3.19.7-200.fc21
    kernel /vmlinuz-3.19.7-200.fc21.x86_64
    append ro panic=10 rd.dm=0 rd.luks=0 rd.plymouth=0 vconsole.keymap=us vconsole.font=latarcyrheb-sun16 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=C root=UUID=ff7ec6df-6e68-4887-8c9a-edcdc15a7f83 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,57600
    initrd /initramfs-3.19.7-200.fc21.x86_64.img

label Linux3
    menu label Fedora21-x86_64 3.18.9-200.fc21
    kernel /vmlinuz-3.18.9-200.fc21.x86_64
    append ro panic=10 rd.dm=0 rd.luks=0 rd.plymouth=0 vconsole.keymap=us vconsole.font=latarcyrheb-sun16 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=C root=UUID=ff7ec6df-6e68-4887-8c9a-edcdc15a7f83 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,57600
    initrd /initramfs-3.18.9-200.fc21.x86_64.img

label Memtest1
    menu label memtest86+-4.20
    kernel /memtest86+-4.20
    append  console=ttyS0,57600

label Memtest2
    menu label memtest86+-5.01
    kernel /memtest86+-5.01
    append  console=ttyS0,57600

label riplinux1
    menu label RIPLinuX 13.7 kernel64
    kernel /riplinux/kernel64
    append nokeymap root=/dev/ram0 rw vga=normal console=tty0 console=ttyS0,57600
    initrd /riplinux/rootfs.cgz

label Linux1_2
    menu label Fedora19-x86_64 3.11.6-200.fc19 root 2
    kernel /vmlinuz-3.11.6-200.fc19.x86_64
    append ro panic=10 rd.dm=0 rd.luks=0 rd.plymouth=0 vconsole.keymap=us vconsole.font=latarcyrheb-sun16 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=C root=UUID=1d52ffda-0533-407f-9c03-7861a6049a07 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,57600
    initrd /initramfs-3.11.6-200.fc19.x86_64.img

> > But the same Fedora 21 extlinux 6.03 setup is able to boot the Fedora 19
> > partition successfully.  Once I am up and running Fedora 19, I run the
> > following commands (using Fedora 19 extlinux version 4.05):
> > 
> >    dd if=/usr/share/syslinux/mbr.bin of=/dev/sda
> >    extlinux --install /boot/extlinux
>  
> But that only installs the bootloader file (and the core module, when relevant). 
> The c32 modules are not being changed (e.g. updated) with such command (alone).

I am aware of that.  It doesn't change the fact that the system does not
boot a Fedora 21 partition with syslinux 6.03 and does boot it successfully
when using the bootloader from 4.05.

> > If I then reboot the system, it is able to boot into either Fedora 19 or
> > Fedora 21 without any problems.  It is true that I do get some minor
> > complaints:
> > 
> >    SYSLINUX 4.05 2011-12-09 Copyright (C) 1994-2011 H. Peter Anvin et al
> >    menu.c32: not a COM32R image
> >    boot: 
>  
> The reason being a mismatch version between the c32 modules and the version of the 
> bootloader.

Yes, of course, but that's not a significant problem.  The system still boots.

> > I don't think it's a mismatch issue.  I have followed the same scripted
> > procedure many times without any problems.
>  
> But until now you were updating versions of Syslinux up to 4.xx. The mismatch 
> version problems were less evident then (more "tolerance" was "accepted"), but 
> since Syslinux v.5+, the mismatch version problem is much more relevant and even a 
> minor mismatch version (e.g. other package claiming to use the same version) might 
> cause problems.

I guess I wasn't clear.  I have followed the same procedure for 22 different
Fedora 19 to Fedora 21 upgrades.  In each case, I went from 4.05 to 6.03.
Only this one machine is misbehaving.  It is presumably, therefore, related
to a hardware issue.

> Anyway, the serial console is one immediate point for review (please post your
> entire extlinux.conf).

I posted it above.  Why is the serial console an "immediate point for review"?
Almost all of my systems use serial consoles, although most are using
IPMI over serial redirection.  This one uses a physical serial connection,
since the baseboard does not have IPMI 2.0 support.

> The BIOS version might matter because Syslinux v.6.xx could be triggering a problem 
> in buggy BIOS versions, whereas v.4.xx was not triggering the same problem. We have 
> seen this before; after the BIOS update the same version of Syslinux might succeed.

That's a fair point.  I will try to upgrade the BIOS next week.

> > The completely vanilla 6.03 setup fails to boot.  The problem is that there
> > is no error message, so it's very hard to troubleshoot.
>  
> You mean "vanilla" as the Syslinux-related packages from Fedora 21, not upstream 
> Syslinux pre-built binaries downloaded from kernel.org, which _might_ (or might 
> not) give a different result. Again, please do not forget to update the c32 files 
> too from the same origin of the bootloader you are actually installing in the VBR. 
> Mixing files from one package with others from another one (even if they are both 
> the same "version") is unwanted for troubleshooting.

Correct.  I am using the Fedora package.  If a BIOS upgrade doesn't fix the
problem, I will try the official syslinux binaries.  I will also try grub2.

> There might be some commit after v.6.03 that might help too, but let's start with 
> the easier steps.

Thanks for your suggestions.

-Andy