linux-kernel - [PATCH] Improve usability in case of init binary failure

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Date:	Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:03:29 +0100
From:	Andreas Mohr <andi@...as.de>
To:	Andreas Mohr <andi@...as.de>
Cc:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Nick Bowler <nbowler@...iptictech.com>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH] Improve usability in case of init binary failure

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 09:40:16PM +0100, Andreas Mohr wrote:
> I'll submit a new version of this patch very soon.

Well, took quite a while longer, partly due to broken Broadcom USB host
(OpenWrt fix to be submitted) and non-working USB-audio on nicer platforms.

Took most of the comments into account (thanks!), improved some wording.

Patch against current git, compile- and runtime-tested,
checkpatch.pl'd (with a single nice hierarchy warning resulting from mixing
git diff output and manual /dev/null diffing).

Thanks!

Signed-off-by: Andreas Mohr <andi@...as.de>

diff --git a/init/main.c b/init/main.c
index dac44a9..33748c6 100644
--- a/init/main.c
+++ b/init/main.c
@@ -836,7 +836,8 @@ static noinline int init_post(void)
 	run_init_process("/bin/init");
 	run_init_process("/bin/sh");
 
-	panic("No init found.  Try passing init= option to kernel.");
+	panic("No init found.  Try passing init= option to kernel. "
+	      "See Linux Documentation/init.txt for guidance.");
 }
 
 static int __init kernel_init(void * unused)
--- /dev/null	2009-12-27 16:25:29.521258205 +0100
+++ Documentation/init.txt	2009-12-27 15:47:46.000000000 +0100
@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+Explaining the dreaded "No init found." boot hang message
+=========================================================
+
+OK, so you've got this pretty unintuitive message (currently located
+in init/main.c) and are wondering what the H*** went wrong.
+Some high-level reasons for failure (listed roughly in order of execution)
+to load the init binary are:
+A) Unable to mount root FS
+B) init binary doesn't exist on rootfs
+C) broken console device
+D) binary exists but dependencies not available
+E) binary cannot be loaded
+
+Detailed explanations:
+0) Set "debug" kernel parameter (in bootloader config file or CONFIG_CMDLINE)
+   to get more detailed kernel messages.
+A) make sure you have the correct root FS type
+   (and root= kernel parameter points to the correct partition),
+   required drivers such as storage hardware (such as SCSI or USB!)
+   and filesystem (ext3, jffs2 etc.) are builtin (alternatively as modules,
+   to be pre-loaded by an initrd)
+C) Possibly a conflict in console= setup --> initial console unavailable.
+   E.g. some serial consoles are unreliable due to serial IRQ issues (e.g.
+   missing interrupt-based configuration).
+   Try using a different console= device or e.g. netconsole= .
+D) e.g. required library dependencies of the init binary such as
+   /lib/ld-linux.so.2 missing or broken. Use readelf -d <INIT>|grep NEEDED
+   to find out which libraries are required.
+E) make sure the binary's architecture matches your hardware.
+   E.g. i386 vs. x86_64 mismatch, or trying to load x86 on ARM hardware.
+   In case you tried loading a non-binary file here (shell script?),
+   you should make sure that the script specifies an interpreter in its shebang
+   header line (#!/...) that is fully working (including its library
+   dependencies). And before tackling scripts, better first test a simple
+   non-script binary such as /bin/sh and confirm its successful execution.
+   To find out more, add code to init/main.c to display kernel_execve()s
+   return values.
+
+Please extend this explanation whenever you find new failure causes
+(after all loading the init binary is a CRITICAL and hard transition step
+which needs to be made as painless as possible), then submit patch to LKML.
+Further TODOs:
+- Implement the various run_init_process() invocations via a struct array
+  which can then store the kernel_execve() result value and on failure
+  log it all by iterating over _all_ results (very important usability fix).
+- try to make the implementation itself more helpful in general,
+  e.g. by providing additional error messages at affected places.
+
+Andreas Mohr <andi at lisas period de>
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