9.2 Boot Problem

[Doug Hardie]

On 9 April 2014, at 11:29, "Chris H" <bsd-lists at bsdforge.com> wrote:

>> 
>> On 4 April 2014, at 21:08, Doug Hardie <bc979 at lafn.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> I put this out on Questions, but got no responses. Hopefully someone here has some ideas.
>>> 
>>> FreeBSD 9.2.  All of my systems are hanging during boot right after the screen that has
>>> the picture.  Its as if someone hit a space on the keyboard.  However, these systems have
>>> no keyboard.  If I plug one in, or use the serial console, and enter a return, the boot
>>> continues properly.
>>> 
>>> The boot menu is displayed along with Beastie.  However, the line that says Autoboot in n
>>> seconds… never appears.  It just stops there.  These are all new installs from CD systems.
>>> I just used freebsd-update to take a toy server from 9.1 to 9.2 and it doesn't exhibit
>>> this behavior.  It boots properly.  I have updated one of the production servers with the
>>> latest 9.2 changes and it still has the issue.  I first thought that some config file did
>>> not get updated properly on the CD.  I have dug around through the 4th files and don't see
>>> anything obvious that would cause this.  I have now verified that all the 4th files in
>>> boot are identical (except for the version number.  They are slightly different).  I don't
>>> believe this is a BIOS setting issue as FreeBSD 7.2 didn't exhibit this behavior.  All 4
>>> systems are on totally different motherboards.
>>> 
>>> I tried setting loader_logo="none" in /boot/config.rc and that eliminated the menu and
>>> Beastie.  I think the system completed booting, but the serial console was then dead.  It
>>> did not respond or output anything.  I had to remove that and reboot to get the console
>>> back again.
>>> 
>>> I need to get this fixed as these are production servers that are essentially unmanned so
>>> its difficult to get them back up again.
>> 
>> 
>> No response here either.  Surely someone must know the loader.  I have been digging through
>> the code, and can't find any differences between the systems that work and those that don't.
>> Is there any way to debug this?  Is there a way to find out where the loader is sitting
>> waiting on input from the terminal.  That might give a clue as to why it didn't autoboot.
>> 
> OK. This is the first I've seen of your post. I'm not going to profess
> being an expert. But I might suggest adding the following to
> loader.conf(5)
> 
> verbose_loading="YES"
> boot_verbose="YES"
> 
> This raises the "noise level". Maybe that will help to provide you with
> a bit more information, as to what, or if, your booting. DO have a look
> through /boot/defaults/loader.conf for more hints, as to what, and how
> you can control the boot process. As well as /etc/defaults/rc.conf.
> In fact, you can pre-decide what, and how, to boot. Even passing by the
> boot menu entirely.

Thanks Chris.  I did that and here is what I get:

Rebooting...
cpu_reset: Stopping other CPUs
/boot.config: -Dh
Consoles: internal video/keyboard  serial port  
BIOS drive A: is disk0
BIOS drive C: is disk1
BIOS 640kB/2087360kB available memory

FreeBSD/x86 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1
(doug at zool.lafn.org, Tue Apr  8 20:30:20 PDT 2014)
Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf 
Warning: unable to open file /boot/loader.conf.local
/boot/kernel/kernel text=0xdb3171 data=0xf3c04+0xbb770 syms=[0x4+0xeda80+0x4+0x1b8ebf]
zpool_cache...failed!
\
H[Esc]ape to loader prompt_   _____ _____  
 |  ____|             |  _ \ / ____|  __ \ 
 | |___ _ __ ___  ___ | |_) | (___ | |  | |
 |  ___| '__/ _ \/ _ \|  _ < \___ \| |  | |
 | |   | | |  __/  __/| |_) |____) | |__| |
 | |   | | |    |    ||     |      |      |
 |_|   |_|  \___|\___||____/|_____/|_____/    ```                        `
                                             s` `.....---.......--.```   -/
 +            Welcome to FreeBSD           + +o   .--`         /y:`      +.
 |                                         |  yo`:.            :o      `+-
 |  1. Boot Multi User [Enter]             |   y/        3;46H /                
 |  2.--  /                                |
 |                                         |
 |  4. Reboot                              | `:                          :`
 |                                         | `:                          :`
 |  Options:                                  /                          /
 |  5. Configure Boot [O]ptions...            .-                        -.
 |                                             --                      -.
 |                                              `:`                  `:`
 |                                                .--             `--.
 |                                                   .---.....----.
 +-----------------------------------------+
                                          
                                                FreeBSD `Nakatomi Socrates' 9.2


Now it waits for a return.  I have tried changing the logo, setting the autoboot timeout and a couple others.  The only thing that did anything different was setting the logo to an invalid value.  Basically the console was dead after that, but the system did boot.  I never see the Auto Boot in n seconds message.  Its also interesting that the list of options above appears incomplete.  On the working system, items 1 through 5 are all present.  I have now checked all the cksum's for all the files in /boot and they are all the same.