IFL Panic

[txkonen]

I just built 2.79 as an ISO and use it UNETBOOTIN to install it as a boot partition.
This way, I go into Windows properties, select UNETBOOTIN and it will boot the IFL.

This has worked in the past, but this new version threw a panic.
I built it on a 64 bit CentOS V6.3 OS.

It almost seems like it didn't find any drives.
This is on a HP Desktop machine.

What do I need to provide for assistance?

[TeraByte Support(TP)]

txkonen wrote:
> I just built 2.79 as an ISO and use it UNETBOOTIN to install it as a boot
> partition.
> This way, I go into Windows properties, select UNETBOOTIN and it will boot
> the IFL.
>
> This has worked in the past, but this new version threw a panic.
> I built it on a 64 bit CentOS V6.3 OS.
>
> It almost seems like it didn't find any drives.
> This is on a HP Desktop machine.
>
> What do I need to provide for assistance?

It sounds like it's not finding its root file system (initrmfs.gz). 2.79 added suppport for booting in UEFI mode, which I don't see off hand how it would cause what you're seeing, but nothing else affecting booting was changed.

Could you summarize the basic steps you take to build and use IFL with Unetbootin. I'll try to duplicate it and figure out what is going wrong. Also, did IFL 2.78 work correctly - or another way to ask is what was the last version that you did this successfully with?

[txkonen]

(I'm doing this on a W2K3 system)
Last IFL was 2.69

I used the setup program under ifl to build the custom version. Basically enabled sshd, timezone for us/central and changed the hostname.
I leave the network to use DHCP.

Next, makeiso to build the iflnet-custom.iso
Now, on the windows machine.
Run UNETBOOTIN-windows-583.exe
Select Diskimage > ISO > browse to iflnet-custom.iso
Below Type should be selected to HardDrive. Drive will be c:\

System then requests a restart, which you really don't have to do.
Next, make a copy of the boot.ini file in the root of the C. Copy boot.ini boot.ini.org (This is needed later)

Right click My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Startup and Recovery settings > Select UNETBOOTIN
Restart the system

(If using W2K8, you need to use BCDEDIT instead and use the /bootsequence option to set the UNETBOOTIN GUID)

This will boot into Image For Linux
Now, you can either work on the console directly, or what I do is create an SSH session, since it is a "lab"
(Keeps me from having to get up from my desk and walk over to the machine)

If using W2K3, the first thing now is copy back the boot.ini.org back to boot.ini.
Otherwise, it will always boot primarily to UNETBOOTIN, instead of the OS partition.
W2K8, you don't worry about that because it will boot back to the primary when restarted.

If this is unclear, I don't know if there is a way to PM here, I could provide alternate contact info if you didn't want to clutter up this thread.

I will try to see if I can grab a photo of what is happening.

ETA: Added photos.
If I let it use the default grub loader of unetbootin, then it misbehaves.
If I select one of the four IFL items, it works fine.
I captured a video, but it is too large to attach here.

Paul

[TeraByte Support(TP)]

txkonen wrote:
> (I'm doing this on a W2K3 system)
> Last IFL was 2.69
>
> I used the setup program under ifl to build the custom version. Basically enabled
> sshd, timezone for us/central and changed the hostname.
> I leave the network to use DHCP.
>
> Next, makeiso to build the iflnet-custom.iso
> Now, on the windows machine.
> Run UNETBOOTIN-windows-583.exe
> Select Diskimage > ISO > browse to iflnet-custom.iso
> Below Type should be selected to HardDrive. Drive will be c:\
>
> System then requests a restart, which you really don't have to do.
> Next, make a copy of the boot.ini file in the root of the C. Copy boot.ini
> boot.ini.org (This is needed later)
>
> Right click My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Startup and Recovery
> settings > Select UNETBOOTIN
> Restart the system
>
> (If using W2K8, you need to use BCDEDIT instead and use the /bootsequence option to
> set the UNETBOOTIN GUID)
>
> This will boot into Image For Linux
> Now, you can either work on the console directly, or what I do is create an SSH
> session, since it is a "lab"
> (Keeps me from having to get up from my desk and walk over to the machine)
>
> If using W2K3, the first thing now is copy back the boot.ini.org back to boot.ini.
> Otherwise, it will always boot primarily to UNETBOOTIN, instead of the OS partition.
> W2K8, you don't worry about that because it will boot back to the primary when
> restarted.
>
> If this is unclear, I don't know if there is a way to PM here, I could provide
> alternate contact info if you didn't want to clutter up this thread.
>
> I will try to see if I can grab a photo of what is happening.
>
> ETA: Added photos.
> If I let it use the default grub loader of unetbootin, then it misbehaves.
> If I select one of the four IFL items, it works fine.
> I captured a video, but it is too large to attach here.
>
> Paul


Thanks for spelling out the steps - it helped to be able to duplicate what you are seeing. It looks like Unetbootin is getting somewhat confused by the items added for UEFI boot in version 2.79, but based on testing this on WinXP (don't have Win2K3 or Win2K8 available), it's quite easily fixed by editing the text file c:\unetbtn\menu.lst, which is the Grub menu file.

What happens is that the "initrd" line in the first menu item for UnetBootin (the first stanza) is pointing to the wrong file. It should point to the IFL file initrmfs.gz. That causes it to not be able to load and mount the root file system, which causes the kernel panic..

Here's the original first stanza in menu.lst that I got after installing IFL (using iflnet-custom.iso) with Unetbootin:

title UNetbootin
find --set-root /unetbtin/ubnkern
kernel /unetbtin/ubnkern vga=0 iflkmap=us ktl=qwerty iflbflag=0 ProductKey=XXXX-YYYY-ZZZZ
initrd /unetbtin/ubninit
boot

Just changing the 4th line as follows should fix it (i.e. make it the same as the initrd line in the other menu items):
initrd /initrmfs.gz

With older versions of IFL (I also tried 2.78), that line was correct out of the box because /unetbtin/ubninit was actually the IFL initrmfs.gz file copied to that location and renamed. If desired, you can also do some additional editing in that file to change the default menu item (default n), delete unwanted menu items, fill in titles, etc.

[txkonen]

BTW, do you want to go and edit your product code out your response?

[TeraByte Support(TP)]

Yes, it's done. Thanks..

[txkonen]

I just tried that suggestion and it worked great.

Thank you.