NST Boot FAQ: Difference between revisions

From MediaWiki
Jump to navigationJump to search
Line 4: Line 4:


* Floppy Drive:
* Floppy Drive:
We have encountered systems like a Dell Inspiron 8200 that seem to hang for a long time during the boot process. These systems do eventually boot, but may take a minute or more to get past the ''udev'' stage of the boot process.
We have encountered systems like a Dell Inspiron 8200 that seem to hang for a long time during the boot process. These systems do eventually boot, but may take a minute or more to get past the ''Starting udev'' stage of the boot process.


The problem appears to be related to the ''floppy'' kernel module being loaded when the BIOS is set to indicate that there is no floppy drive installed. We're not sure whether the problem is related to the ''udev'' system, the kernel, the BIOS implementation or some sort of combination of these.
The problem appears to be related to the ''floppy'' kernel module being loaded when the BIOS is set to indicate that there is no floppy drive installed. We're not sure whether the problem is related to the ''udev'' system, the kernel, the BIOS implementation or some sort of combination of these.
Line 15: Line 15:


* Network Interface Card (NIC) Adapter Order:
* Network Interface Card (NIC) Adapter Order:
We have seen that in a systems with multiple '''NIC''' adapters that the defined adapters in the "'''/etc/70-persistent-net.rules'''" may not agree with the "'''udev'''" detected values.
We have seen that in a systems with multiple '''NIC''' adapters that the defined adapters in the "'''/etc/70-persistent-net.rules'''" may not agree with the "'''udev'''" detected values at boot time. If this occurs, the '''NST''' probe may take a minute or more to get past the ''Starting udev'' stage of the boot process. You can check the '''NIC''' adapter order detected by "'''udev'''" using the "'''dmesg'''" system utility.

Revision as of 06:59, 27 July 2010

Boot Issues

Potential reasons why the NST probe may hang at the "Starting udev" stage?

  • Floppy Drive:

We have encountered systems like a Dell Inspiron 8200 that seem to hang for a long time during the boot process. These systems do eventually boot, but may take a minute or more to get past the Starting udev stage of the boot process.

The problem appears to be related to the floppy kernel module being loaded when the BIOS is set to indicate that there is no floppy drive installed. We're not sure whether the problem is related to the udev system, the kernel, the BIOS implementation or some sort of combination of these.

You can avoid this problem on a hard disk installation or a Live USB boot that has a persistence layer available by black listing the floppy module:

echo "blacklist floppy" >| /etc/modprobe.d/floppy.conf

Since floppy disk drives are seldom found in current systems, we may decide to black list the floppy driver by default in future versions of the NST.

  • Network Interface Card (NIC) Adapter Order:

We have seen that in a systems with multiple NIC adapters that the defined adapters in the "/etc/70-persistent-net.rules" may not agree with the "udev" detected values at boot time. If this occurs, the NST probe may take a minute or more to get past the Starting udev stage of the boot process. You can check the NIC adapter order detected by "udev" using the "dmesg" system utility.