Re: chroot into a debootstrap filesystem and the numerous problems
On 9/6/25 16:24, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
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.
I can relate. This whole "age" thing has a long term cost.
[ 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.
I saw that also. I rebuilt the initrd with every driver I could find.
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.
I was very careful with that. Over and over and over. I can boot the
3.2.0 Linux stuff no problem. I have been trying all manner of
combinations with silo.conf and generally I see a "Fast Data MMU miss"
error or I see some other silo early boot problem.
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 was very careful with that.
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
Now that looks like a great idea !
--
--
Dennis Clarke
RISC-V/SPARC/PPC/ARM/CISC
UNIX and Linux spoken
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