Boot fails with busybox prompt using LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1068E PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS [1000:0058] (rev 08) SAS Disk Controller

Roni - We are a bit confused by your description. Are you saying you were able to install to a SAS drive using the LiveCD, but then the next boot failed when attempting to boot from the SAS drive? And that installing to a SATA drive works correctly as well as detecting the SAS drives?

Correct.

Thanks,
roni

--------------------------------
Roni Kisin
Assistant Professor of Finance
Olin Business School
Washington University in St. Louis
Campus Box 1133
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130
Tel: (314) 935-3563

On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 11:55 AM, Tim Gardner <email address hidden>wrote:

> Roni - We are a bit confused by your description. Are you saying you
> were able to install to a SAS drive using the LiveCD, but then the next
> boot failed when attempting to boot from the SAS drive? And that
> installing to a SATA drive works correctly as well as detecting the SAS
> drives?
>
> --
> Boot fails with busybox prompt using LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1068E
> PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS [1000:0058] (rev 08) SAS Disk Controller
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/611474
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in “linux” package in Ubuntu: Triaged
>
> Bug description:
> Upon installation of 10.04 32/64bit and 10.10 64bit, to the SAS drives,
> Ubuntu boots into busybox.
>
> The following SAS controller is still not properly supported in Karmic,
> Lucid or Maverick:
> LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1068E PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS [1000:0058]
> (rev 08)
> Module: mptsas
>
> The Precision WorkStation T7500 was purchased from Dell with Red Hat 5.3
> 64bit preinstalled.
>
> We have tested the "rootdelay=60" boot option (tip found in one of the
> similar bugs) which did not work.
>
> We have tested using the Maverick Daily from 23/07/2010 as well as 2.6.35
> RC6 from the mainline PPA.
>
> The symptom we are seeing is being booted into busybox when booting Ubuntu
> from the SAS drive. Booting into recovery mode brings him to an initramfs
> prompt. Booting from a SATA drive seems to works. The BIOS version is A05,
> the latest.
>
> Similar bugs seem to confirm the issue with this controller:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/474207
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/579572
>
> We went through the following after installing Lucid 64-bit:
> 1) Boot from LiveCD
> 2) Mount drive with installation
> 3) Mount proc dev and sys
> $ sudo -s
> # mount -o bind /proc /media/external_drive/proc
> # mount -o bind /dev /media/external_drive/dev
> # mount -o bind /sys /media/external_drive/sys
> 4) chroot into the external drive
> # chroot /media/external_drive/
> 5) upgrade your system
> # sudo apt-get -y update; sudo apt-get -y upgrade; sudo apt-get -y
> dist-upgrade
>
> 6) (Optional) - Just to play it safe, we tried the latest kernel available
> to see if the issue was fixed.
> # mkdir linux-2.6.35
> # cd linux-2.6.35
> # wget
> http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.35-rc6-maverick/linux-headers-2.6.35-020635rc6-generic_2.6.35-020635rc6_amd64.deb<http://kernel.ubuntu.com/%7Ekernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.35-rc6-maverick/linux-headers-2.6.35-020635rc6-generic_2.6.35-020635rc6_amd64.deb>
> # wget
> http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.35-rc6-maverick/linux-image-2.6.35-020635rc6-generic_2.6.35-020635rc6_amd64.deb<http://kernel.ubuntu.com/%7Ekernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.35-rc6-maverick/linux-image-2.6.35-020635rc6-generic_2.6.35-020635rc6_amd64.deb>
> # wget
> http://kernel.ub...

If cuurentdmesg.txt is a continuation of bootdmesg.txt, then it looks like sdb and sdc come up after the boot process gives up. Where are you installed to. I see you have the following on what appears to be an onboard sata:
   scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA ST3120026AS 8.05 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5

And then on the lsi card you have two of the following:
   scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access SEAGATE ST3300657SS ES62 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5

If you're installed to the sata drive, you're drive came up ~3seconds so it should have been fine. The LSI ones came up ~34seconds which is a little long but not horrible.

Could you describe what the two logs are from? What would be helpful is to have on that shows the boot process of a failed boot.

We have the same issue on the Dell Precision T7500. Interestingly, it used to work with an earlier kernel, as we have been running this machine on Lucid without flaws for months. After a planned outage, we started getting "Gave up waiting for root device" on boot, and a prompt to busybox. The bootdelay=60 doesn't work for us either.

The main issue that I am seeing is that the disk comes up, but the /dev/disk/by-uuid directory is missing. Since Grub is looking for root via UUID, the boot fails. If I change root to "root=/dev/sda1" it comes up, but hangs later because it still wants to mount all the partitions by UUID and the directory is still gone. Again, this is a new issue from one of the later kernels.

Problem disapeared after flashing BIOS to A08 and SAS controler to 6.12.05
Also GRUB used /dev/hda as target but /dev/hdc was the proper target.

used shell to regrub to /dev/hdc manually

basic install semms to wrongly detect the device which to boot from

Roni Kisin, this bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? If so, could you please test for this with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ .

If it remains an issue, could you please run the following command in the development release from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal), as it will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report:

apport-collect -p linux <replace-with-bug-number>

Also, could you please test the latest upstream kernel available following https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds ? It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Please do not test the daily kernel folder, but the one all the way at the bottom. Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please comment on which kernel version specifically you tested. If this bug is fixed in the mainline kernel, please add the following tags:
kernel-fixed-upstream
kernel-fixed-upstream-VERSION-NUMBER

where VERSION-NUMBER is the version number of the kernel you tested. For example:
kernel-fixed-upstream-v3.12-rc2

This can be done by clicking on the yellow circle with a black pencil icon next to the word Tags located at the bottom of the bug description. As well, please remove the tag:
needs-upstream-testing

If the mainline kernel does not fix this bug, please add the following tags:
kernel-bug-exists-upstream
kernel-bug-exists-upstream-VERSION-NUMBER

As well, please remove the tag:
needs-upstream-testing

Once testing of the upstream kernel is complete, please mark this bug's Status as Confirmed. Please let us know your results. Thank you for your understanding.

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]