Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 18:01:22 +0200 From: Chris Zumbrunn <chris@czv.com> To: Alex Zbyslaw <xfb52@dial.pipex.com> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Stuck in bootstrapping hell - how do I troubleshoot? Message-ID: <a321c5840470646276c71827aa75bbb9@czv.com> In-Reply-To: <4268E78D.6030009@dial.pipex.com> References: <5af4153cc97abfa75d403f30eb8e9963@czv.com> <f428b0f5d245cc46f5236416ba2b145c@czv.com> <4268E78D.6030009@dial.pipex.com>
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On Apr 22, 2005, at 2:01 PM, Alex Zbyslaw wrote: > Chris Zumbrunn wrote: > >>> The server is in a datacenter and I can only access it via ssh and >>> boot either from the local disks or via network (freebsd or linux) - >>> no serial console, so I can't see where it gets stuck during the >>> bootstrap. >>> > Do you mean that you can boot the machine from an OS it picks up from > the network? Yes, exactly. > I.e. you can boot some OS which is not the one of the local disk? If > so, then boot the network FreeBSD, mount your local disks and look at > /var/log/messages. If the machine was at least booting FreeBSD when > it died then you should see something. I did check that. Nothing is written to /var/log/messages during a local boot attempt. So, the boot fails before that. I checked the MBR by comparing the output of "dd if=/dev/ar0 bs=512 count=1" on the trouble machines with that of a machine that boots fine - and they look identical. So, the MBR seems to be where it belongs. I guess the boot process gets stuck either during boot1/boot2 but before the kernel loads or there is a problem with the RAID1 setup and the machine never even gets to the point where it would look for a MBR on the ar0 disks. Also, when a debian disk image is installed on the same machine, it does boot from the local disks. So, maybe something is goofy with the partitioning/slicing - but I can't see what that would be. # fdisk ar0 ******* Working on device /dev/ar0 ******* parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are: cylinders=14945 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl) Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1 parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are: cylinders=14945 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl) Media sector size is 512 Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1 Information from DOS bootblock is: The data for partition 1 is: sysid 165,(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD) start 63, size 240107427 (117239 Meg), flag 80 (active) beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1; end: cyl 1023/ head 254/ sector 63 The data for partition 2 is: <UNUSED> The data for partition 3 is: <UNUSED> The data for partition 4 is: <UNUSED> # disklabel ar0s1 # /dev/ar0s1: type: ESDI disk: ar0s1 label: flags: bytes/sector: 512 sectors/track: 63 tracks/cylinder: 255 sectors/cylinder: 16065 cylinders: 14945 sectors/unit: 240107427 rpm: 3600 interleave: 1 trackskew: 0 cylinderskew: 0 headswitch: 0 # milliseconds track-to-track seek: 0 # milliseconds drivedata: 0 8 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize bps/cpg] a: 240107427 0 4.2BSD 2048 16384 89 # (Cyl. 0 - 14945*) c: 240107427 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 14945*) Any further ideas or hints on what else to check would be very appreciated... Chris
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