Re: Strange boot-time hang (long, sorry)

[Andrew Reid <reidac@bellatlantic.net>]

On Sunday 11 November 2007 13:26, Douglas A. Tutty wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 11, 2007 at 10:14:23AM -0500, Andrew Reid wrote:
> >   The system is a file server, it's a dual-core Opteron machine,
> > 4G RAM, root FS on a software RAID1 array and the served files
> > on a 3ware RAID5 system with a capacity of about 2.6 TB.  The
> > important services are ssh, nfsd, and nfs, but it's also a
> > CUPS server.
> >
> >   Several days ago, this machine crashed, probably due to a disk
> > failure in the RAID1 root-fs array, and subsequent to the disk
> > replacement, was not able to reboot fully into run-level 2, instead
> > always hanging somewhere in the /etc/rc2.d/S20* part of the start-up
> > sequence.
>
> Why did the machine crash due to a disk failure if its on a raid1
> root-fs array?  If swap is also on raid there should be no failure
> unless its hardware other than the single disk.

  I don't actually know for sure that it crashed due to a disk
failure, only that the crash coincided with a disk failure.
The log entries related to the reboot showed /dev/sda not
coming up, and the RAID1 being run in degraded mode.

  It's possible that several things happened at once.  

> The other reply you've received, about /dev/console, can be checked by
> booting up with init=/bin/sh so that udev isn't started and see what you
> get.

  That's a good tip, I'll try that.

					-- A.
-- 
Andrew Reid / reidac@bellatlantic.net