Re: chroot into a debootstrap filesystem and the numerous problems
Hi,
On Sat, 2025-09-06 at 15:08 -0400, Dennis Clarke wrote:
> Well firstly I am thankful for the documentation. This is a highly
> functional maillist lately. Well, the debootstrap process went amazingly
> smooth :
You're welcome. I'm only answering briefly for today because I have backpain
and need some rest for the remainder of the day.
> [ 23.133458] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs
> on unknown-block(0,0)
> [ 23.242118] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted
> 6.12.3-sparc64-smp #1 Debian 6.12.3-1+sparc64
> [ 23.370232] Call Trace:
> [ 23.402325] [<0000000000ef8e70>] dump_stack+0x8/0x18
> [ 23.467584] [<0000000000eeb430>] panic+0xf4/0x398
> [ 23.529407] [<00000000013af7f4>] mount_root_generic+0x1cc/0x268
> [ 23.607236] [<00000000013afa1c>] mount_root+0x18c/0x19c
> [ 23.675914] [<00000000013afc4c>] prepare_namespace+0x220/0x25c
> [ 23.752597] [<00000000013af218>] kernel_init_freeable+0x284/0x29c
> [ 23.832713] [<0000000000ef9c08>] kernel_init+0x18/0x12c
> [ 23.901390] [<00000000004060c8>] ret_from_fork+0x1c/0x2c
> [ 23.971217] [<0000000000000000>] 0x0
> [ 24.018204] Press Stop-A (L1-A) from sun keyboard or send break
> [ 24.018204] twice on console to return to the boot prom
> [ 24.164596] ---[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount
> root fs on unknown-block(0,0) ]---
Skimming through the messages, it does not look like the kernel has any
block devices drivers loaded, so it doesn't see your disks. I'm also not
seeing the kernel message about unpacking the initramfs, so that's not
surprising.
It should look like this (with a different timestamp, of course):
[ 0.960540] Trying to unpack rootfs image as initramfs...
Did you verify that the symbolic links in silo.conf point to the correct
vmlinux and initrd images?
You have:
# cat silo.conf
root=/dev/sdb4
partition=1
default=Linux
read-only
timeout=100
image=/vmlinux
label=Linux
initrd=/initrd.img
root=UUID=61ac8441-3afa-4ed1-99b6-8278877bda12
Notice that you specified "root=" twice. Try putting the one with the UUID
into line 1.
Also, where do /vmlinux and /initrd.img point to? They need to point to the kernel
and initrd image that you want to load. Please make sure those are not dangling
symlinks.
> I suspect that silo.conf can not actually use the UUID data.
> Just a guess.
You can also try to pass the command on the kernel command line:
boot: Linux initrd=/boot/initrd.img-6.12.3-sparc64-smp root=UUID=61ac8441-3afa-4ed1-99b6-8278877bda12
Adrian
--
.''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' : Debian Developer
`. `' Physicist
`- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913
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