Syslinux - Mar 2018 - Linux boot hangs after/during read of initrd.img

Precis: I?m trying to debug a problem with CentOS7 failing to install from an
ISO written to a USB pendrive ? anyone got suggestions?

What works ? installing on a modern, ?standard PC?; the pendrive image boots and
installs as I expect

What does not work ? same pendrive booting in an ATCA blade.  What I?ve tried
is?


  1.  Boot the standard CentOS7 minimal image.  This seems to start but then
just sits at a black screen
  2.  Forcing ?serial? from the isolinux.cfg. This seems to have little effect.
  3.  Rebuilding the CentOS7 minimal image but using the latest
SYSLINUX/ISOLINUX source code compiled by me; rebuilding into an ISO then
isohybrid.ed.  This shows ?Loading vmlinux?ok? and ?loading initrd.img?ok? and
then hangs in a similar way to the vanilla image.
  4.  Adding a printfs() into the SYS/ISOLINUX source code to try and narrow
down the problem.  This seems to exhibit number of strange problems?.

Adding the printf()s has only confused me because:


  *   The web implies that SYS/ISOLINUX is single threaded but the printf()
output seems to come out the wrong order (yes, I?m also using fflush(stdout) :)
).
  *   There are additional strange strings printed to screen, such as ANSI
positional strings which seem to throw the cursor all over the place.
  *   I see the ?Loading vmlinuz?? string TWICE (sounds like something some
others have seen).
  *   SYS/ISOLINUX seems to crash/hang in an fread() of the initrd.img file; I
see the ?ok? printed but I have printf()s in the file loading routine and the
printf()s after the fread() do not print to screen.

So I?m now very confused!  Anyone able to shed some light on possible problems
here?  I?m happy to do a few more debug builds and runs to help figure this out
if someone has some suggestions.

Thanks,
Paul D.Smith

Hell,

[quoted lines from Paul Smith]:
> Precis: I?m trying to debug a problem with CentOS7 failing to install from
an ISO written to a USB pendrive ? anyone got suggestions?
> 
> What works ? installing on a modern, ?standard PC?; the pendrive image
boots and installs as I expect
> 
> What does not work ? same pendrive booting in an ATCA blade.  What I?ve
tried is?
> 
> 
>   1.  Boot the standard CentOS7 minimal image.  This seems to start but
then just sits at a black screen
>   2.  Forcing ?serial? from the isolinux.cfg. This seems to have little
effect.
>   3.  Rebuilding the CentOS7 minimal image but using the latest
SYSLINUX/ISOLINUX source code compiled by me; rebuilding into an ISO then
isohybrid.ed.  This shows ?Loading vmlinux?ok? and ?loading initrd.img?ok? and
then hangs in a similar way to the vanilla image.
>   4.  Adding a printfs() into the SYS/ISOLINUX source code to try and
narrow down the problem.  This seems to exhibit number of strange problems?.
I have had more luck using xorriso to write an hybrid ISO than post-hybriding
the ISO using isohybrid.

I am CCing Thomas Schmitt, xorriso mantainer who could shed more light.

Here is an example: 

# ISO is the path to the root of the ISO tree
# PATHTOISO is the path to the hybrid ISO being written, including its name. 
( cd $ISO
if [ "$SFX" = "64" ]; then
  EFIOPTIONS="-eltorito-alt-boot -e isolinux/efiboot.img
-isohybrid-gpt-basdat -no-emul-boot"
fi
xorriso -as mkisofs \
    -isohybrid-mbr /usr/share/syslinux/isohdpfx.bin \
    -hide-rr-moved \
    -U \
    -V "MyCENTOS" \
    -J \
    -joliet-long \
    -r \
    -v \
    -o $PATHTOISO \
    -b isolinux/isolinux.bin \
    -c isolinux/boot.cat \
    -no-emul-boot \
    -boot-info-table $EFIOPTIONS . \
)

Have a good day,

Didier

s/Hell/Hello/ of course, sorry ;)

Le 12/03/2018 ? 12:05, Didier Spaier via Syslinux a
?crit?:
> Hell,

Hi,

Didier Spaier wrote:
> I am CCing Thomas Schmitt, xorriso mantainer who could shed more light.
I saw Paul Smith's report already, but did not feel in charge because
he reports to see messages from fully running SYSLINUX.

Paul Smith wrote:
> > ?Loading vmlinux?ok? and ?loading initrd.img?ok?
Problems specific to ISO 9660 boot entries should rather appear earlier.
(E.g. we had the failure of isohybrid MBR on C/H/S addressing BIOS to
 properly start the isolinux.bin program. That's about the limit how far
 i can reach with my experience.)

>   *   SYS/ISOLINUX seems to crash/hang in an fread() of the initrd.img
file;
But why then does it say ?loading initrd.img?ok? ?

With that "ok", i did put the blame on the booted Linux or on the way
how
SYSLINUX tries to start it.


It would be helpful for me to have the exact URL of the affected ISO.


Didier Spaier wrote:
> xorriso -as mkisofs \
> ...
Repacking a CentOS ISO should be doable by xorriso.
My youngest image is from august 2015.
It is prepared for BIOS and EFI from CD-ROM.
But for booting from USB stick it only is prepared for BIOS.

  $ xorriso -indev CentOS-6.7-x86_64-minimal.iso -report_el_torito plain
-report_system_area plain
  ...
  El Torito images   :   N  Pltf  B   Emul  Ld_seg  Hdpt  Ldsiz         LBA
  El Torito boot img :   1  BIOS  y   none  0x0000  0x00      4          82
  El Torito boot img :   2  UEFI  y   none  0x0000  0x00    744          94
  El Torito img path :   1  /isolinux/isolinux.bin
  El Torito img opts :   1  boot-info-table isohybrid-suitable
  El Torito img path :   2  /images/efiboot.img
  ...
  MBR partition table:   N Status  Type        Start       Blocks
  MBR partition      :   1   0x80  0x17            0       808960

No MBR partition of type 0xef, no GPT which would point to file
/images/efiboot.img.

To add an EFI System Partition of type 0xef to the MBR you may run

  isohybrid --uefi CentOS-6.7-x86_64-minimal.iso


Maybe you did already that and it was the trigger to get further with
booting.
But if in this case really the EFI System Partition was used, then you'd
have ended up in GRUB-Legacy:

  # mount CentOS-6.7-x86_64-minimal.iso /mnt/iso
  # mount /mnt/iso/images/efiboot.img /mnt/fat
  # strings /mnt/fat/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.efi | grep '^GNU GRUB'
  GNU GRUB 0.97

The situation stays riddling.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

Didier,

Thanks for the suggestion.  I tried building using your 'xorriso' script
but
the resulting image booted, and then failed, in exactly the same way.  Again
it got as far as appearing to be loading initrd into memory and then hung.

Paul DS.

-----Original Message-----
From: Syslinux [mailto:syslinux-bounces at zytor.com] On Behalf Of Didier
Spaier via Syslinux
Sent: 12 March 2018 11:05
To: syslinux at zytor.com
Subject: Re: [syslinux] Linux boot hangs after/during read of initrd.img

Hell,

[quoted lines from Paul Smith]:
> Precis: I'm trying to debug a problem with CentOS7 failing to install
from
an ISO written to a USB pendrive - anyone got
suggestions?
> 
> What works - installing on a modern, 'standard PC'; the pendrive
image
> boots and installs as I expect
> 
> What does not work - same pendrive booting in an ATCA blade.  What 
> I've tried is.
> 
> 
>   1.  Boot the standard CentOS7 minimal image.  This seems to start but
then just sits at a black screen
>   2.  Forcing 'serial' from the isolinux.cfg. This seems to have
little
effect.
>   3.  Rebuilding the CentOS7 minimal image but using the latest
SYSLINUX/ISOLINUX source code compiled by me; rebuilding into an ISO then
isohybrid.ed.  This shows 'Loading vmlinux.ok' and 'loading
initrd.img.ok'
and then hangs in a similar way to the vanilla image.
>   4.  Adding a printfs() into the SYS/ISOLINUX source code to try and
narrow down the problem.  This seems to exhibit number of strange problems..

I have had more luck using xorriso to write an hybrid ISO than
post-hybriding the ISO using isohybrid.

I am CCing Thomas Schmitt, xorriso mantainer who could shed more light.

Here is an example: 

# ISO is the path to the root of the ISO tree # PATHTOISO is the path to the
hybrid ISO being written, including its name. 
( cd $ISO
if [ "$SFX" = "64" ]; then
  EFIOPTIONS="-eltorito-alt-boot -e isolinux/efiboot.img
-isohybrid-gpt-basdat -no-emul-boot"
fi
xorriso -as mkisofs \
    -isohybrid-mbr /usr/share/syslinux/isohdpfx.bin \
    -hide-rr-moved \
    -U \
    -V "MyCENTOS" \
    -J \
    -joliet-long \
    -r \
    -v \
    -o $PATHTOISO \
    -b isolinux/isolinux.bin \
    -c isolinux/boot.cat \
    -no-emul-boot \
    -boot-info-table $EFIOPTIONS . \
)

Have a good day,

Didier
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