I get a kernel panic on boot when I upgraded from a vanilla 2.6.20.4 to a vanilla 2.6.21.3 kernel on a Fedora Core 6 box. Here's the relevant part of the log:
Creating root device.
Mounting root filesystem.
mount: could not find filesystem '/dev/root'
Setting up other filesystems.
Setting up new root fs
setuproot: moving /dev failed: No such file or directory
no fstab.sys, mounting internal defaults
setuproot: error mounting /proc: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /sys: No such file or directory
Switching to new root and running init.
unmounting old /dev
unmounting old /proc
unmounting old /sys
switchroot: mount failed: No such file or directory
[ 580.767825] Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!
What I believe is happening is that the builtin nash command mkrootdev is silently failing to produce a /dev/root. I assume this because I added a call to the init script that lists the entries in the /dev file system at boot time:
find /dev
This is output right after the mkrootdev call but before the setuproot call. I see about two dozen or so /dev entries from the find command on the console. However, on 2.6.21.3, /dev/root is not listed, but it is listed for 2.6.20.4. As such, 2.6.20.4 boots fine whereas 2.6.21.3 then panics.
Here is what my 2.6.20.4 boot log looks like:
Creating root device.
Mounting root filesystem.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Setting up other filesystems.
Setting up new root fs
no fstab.sys, mounting internal defaults
Switching to new root and running init.
unmounting old /dev
unmounting old /proc
unmounting old /sys
Regarding my root= option, it's /dev/sda3 as opposed to LABEL=/. My root filesystem is ext3 which is a module as opposed to built-in. However, my 2.6.20.4 kernel was the same way and caused no issues.
So, it would seem that mkinitrd is not creating a /dev entry for the root device. Based on some Google-ing, I tried to manually create the entry in my init script:
mknod /dev/sda3 b 8 3
mknod /dev/root b 8 3
But then it said:
Creating root device.
Mounting root filesystem.
mount: error mounting /dev/root on /sysroot as ext3: No such device or address
Setting up other filesystems.
Setting up new root fs
setuproot: moving /dev failed: No such file or directory
no fstab.sys, mounting internal defaults
setuproot: error mounting /proc: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /sys: No such file or directory
Switching to new root and running init.
unmounting old /dev
unmounting old /proc
unmounting old /sys
switchroot: mount failed: No such file or directory
[ 292.981508] Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!
I have heard some references to udev and have seen some calls to /sbin/udevstartup or something in some user's init scripts, but my mkinitrd does not generate this call.
Any ideas? I've been working on this for nearly a week now and Google-ing for it ad naseum. I've heard that Fedora is not too friendly to vanilla kernels, but I don't really want to switch my whole distro because of this issue.
Thanks!
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