CentOS - Feb 2007 - CentOS 4.4 on Dell PE 6400 - not rebooting ...

Hi All,

This is my first post ... I *HAD* been trying to get RHEL AS 4 onto  
this Dell PE 6400/700, but it just wouldn't go without some weird  
tweaking.

I am VERY happy to say that CentOS 4.4 installed without a hitch!   
NICELY done folks!

The only real issue for me is that the machine fails to reboot or  
shutdown correctly.

It requires physical interaction with the power switch, which  
certainly limits remote, headless administration!

A reboot (or shutdown -r now) follows through to " ", but the machine
never restarts - it appears to freeze (num-lock works, key-caps does  
not and Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing) - I have to press and hold the  
power button to force a restart.

I get similar results with telinit 6 (or init 6).

A shutdown works ever so slightly better, it gets to the " ", and  
does not power off the machine, a simple press of the power button  
does power it off.

Does ANYONE have ANY ideas?

OR point me in some direction?

Dell support is useless for an unsupported OS.

Machine info:

Dell PowerEdge 6400 quad Xenon 700Mhz CPUs, a Dell PERC/2 card (w/two  
RAID 5 containers), an Intel GB net card, and 2GB RAM.

-- 
+----------------------------[ Joe.Kazura at UNH.EDU ]---+
| Joe Kazura                                          | Mac OS X ...
| CIS/TCS -- 1 Leavitt Lane    PHONE: +1-603-862-2012 |   Because UNIX
| University of New Hampshire                         |   should be user
| Durham, NH  03824-3512  USA    "docendo discimus"   |   friendly!
|                                                     |
+-----------------[ http://www.unh.edu/tcs/ ]---------+



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Im sure at least one person on this list will reply with "Omg, i have
that same box and have had no problems, you're dumb!!!" 
 
I get it every time I interact with someone from CentOS
 
-Drew
 

________________________________

From: centos-bounces at centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On
Behalf Of Joe Kazura
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 9:09 AM
To: CentOS mailing list
Subject: [CentOS] CentOS 4.4 on Dell PE 6400 - not rebooting ...


Hi All, 

This is my first post ... I *HAD* been trying to get RHEL AS 4 onto this
Dell PE 6400/700, but it just wouldn't go without some weird tweaking.

I am VERY happy to say that CentOS 4.4 installed without a hitch!
NICELY done folks!

The only real issue for me is that the machine fails to reboot or
shutdown correctly.

It requires physical interaction with the power switch, which certainly
limits remote, headless administration!

A reboot (or shutdown -r now) follows through to " ", but the machine
never restarts - it appears to freeze (num-lock works, key-caps does not
and Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing) - I have to press and hold the power
button to force a restart.

I get similar results with telinit 6 (or init 6).

A shutdown works ever so slightly better, it gets to the " ", and does
not power off the machine, a simple press of the power button does power
it off.

Does ANYONE have ANY ideas?

OR point me in some direction?

Dell support is useless for an unsupported OS.

Machine info:

Dell PowerEdge 6400 quad Xenon 700Mhz CPUs, a Dell PERC/2 card (w/two
RAID 5 containers), an Intel GB net card, and 2GB RAM.

-- 
+----------------------------[ Joe.Kazura at UNH.EDU ]---+
| Joe Kazura                                          | Mac OS X ...
| CIS/TCS -- 1 Leavitt Lane    PHONE: +1-603-862-2012 |   Because UNIX 
| University of New Hampshire                         |   should be user
| Durham, NH  03824-3512  USA    "docendo discimus"   |   friendly!
|                                                     |
+-----------------[ http://www.unh.edu/tcs/ ]---------+



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On 21/02/07, Joe Kazura <joe.kazura at unh.edu>
wrote:
> This is my first post ... I *HAD* been trying to get RHEL AS 4 onto this
> Dell PE 6400/700, but it just wouldn't go without some weird tweaking.
>
> A reboot (or shutdown -r now) follows through to " ", but the
machine never
> restarts - it appears to freeze (num-lock works, key-caps does not and
> Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing) - I have to press and hold the power button to
> force a restart.
Have you tried booting the box (and then rebooting) with one/some/all
of the various APIC/ACPI options? e.g. "noapic noacpi apic=off
acpi=off"?

And is your BIOS firmware up to date?

Will.

On 21/02/07, Drew Weaver <drew.weaver at thenap.com>
wrote:
>
> Im sure at least one person on this list will reply with "Omg, i have
that
> same box and have had no problems, you're dumb!!!"
>
> I get it every time I interact with someone from CentOS
Then they would appear to be correct in at least some of their assumptions.

Will.

Folks - FYI:

I finally got it to work (at least once)!

     reboot=bios,smp,warm

Since I didn't actually TRY 'reboot=triple',  I, of course, am  
wondering if 'reboot=triple' is synonymous for  
'reboot=bios,smp,warm' ...

Mmmmm - masochism!!!

A co-worker pointed me to this:

     /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-2.6.9/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt

Specifically:

    reboot=	[BUGS=IA-32,BUGS=ARM,BUGS=IA-64] Rebooting mode
		Format: <reboot_mode>[,<reboot_mode2>[,...]]
		See arch/*/kernel/reboot.c or arch/*/kernel/process.c

BUT - I don't have either 'reboot.c' or 'process.c' (ARG!)

So ... after a TON of googling I found references to various  
combinations of the three, but not all three together.

It works!!!  FINALLY!!!


-- 
+----------------------------[ Joe.Kazura at UNH.EDU ]---+
| Joe Kazura                                          | Mac OS X ...
| CIS/TCS -- 1 Leavitt Lane    PHONE: +1-603-862-2012 |   Because UNIX
| University of New Hampshire                         |   should be user
| Durham, NH  03824-3512  USA    "docendo discimus"   |   friendly!
|                                                     |
+-----------------[ http://www.unh.edu/tcs/ ]---------+



On Mar 2, 2007, at 7:03 AM, Morten Torstensen wrote:
> Joe Kazura wrote:
>> Well - reboot=bios didn't work ...
>> I'll try 'reboot=triple' when I get a chance.
>
> Speaking of the devil... I've had a mobo where I needed reboot=bios  
> on CentOS 4. Now with RHEL5, that parameter is no longer effective.  
> Seems like YMMV a lot. I will try to remember to keep you updated  
> if I find another solution :)
>
> -- 
>
> //Morten Torstensen