Kernel Panic: No Init Found, try init= option

gaz · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 12 Oct 2002 Posts: 126

Hey, Ive gone through the installation fine

put the kernel in /boot and it boots the kernel through grub

ive never compiled a kernel before, this is my first attempt

It boots! but then it goes

Kernel Panic: no init found, try init= option

-Gaz

mudskinny · n00b Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 10 Location: utah

most likely this is caused by the kernel not being able to find init!!
i must suggest a review of your grub kernel options

eg, kernel /boot/bzImage root=/dev/hda3
make sure root= points to your / directory
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later

Guiyon · n00b Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 7

Just ran into a similar problem with my Gentoo install. Managed to get from stage 1-3 with no problems (ignoring the stupid mistakes). Rebooted and I am immediatly greeted with the common "Kernal Panic: No Init found" etc, etc. Init is located in /sbin/init (first thing I checked)

The exact text of the error is:

rac · Posted: Mon Oct 14, 2002 4:10 am Post subject:

Can you try turning the notail option off on your root partition?
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Guiyon · n00b Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 7

Removed notail and still doesn't boot.

rac · Posted: Mon Oct 14, 2002 5:56 am Post subject:

/sbin/init is executable, right? It's probably just a typo in the post, and I don't think it matters anyway, because the root partition is getting mounted, but there's a tiny chance that it would matter when it tries to remount it r/w, but that 'reiserf' in /etc/fstab is really 'reiserfs' in the real thing, right?
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Guiyon · n00b Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 7

Yeah, that was just a typo in the post. It does actually read reiserfs in the fstab. Checked out init and it does have execute permissions on it (755).

Guiyon · n00b Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 7

Tried adding and init option to the boot parameters (init=/sbin/init). Still resulted in kernel panic. However, after I linked /sbin/init to /bin/init and used init=/bin/init the computer skipped the kernel panic. After that section however, it runs into a problem somewhere (didn't see anything, scrolled too fast. Is that output stored anywhere?). I did catch a bit of interesting text though:

oniq · Guru Joined: 02 Sep 2002 Posts: 597 Location: Connecticut

Luminion · n00b Joined: 10 Oct 2002 Posts: 13 Location: Israel

Guiyon · n00b Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 7

No such luck. Still ended up with a kernel panic. This thing is starting to become random. Rarely it will boot but then give me the above errors and nearly every other time kernal panic me. Once I get back from classes i'll try building a vanilla kernel to see if that helps at all.

dmhaas · n00b Joined: 12 Oct 2002 Posts: 6

Try turning off grsecurity and recompiling your kernel. I had the same problem and that fixed it for me...

toruviel · n00b Joined: 16 Oct 2002 Posts: 2 Location: POLAND

got the same problem. it happend on kernel compiled from gentoo-sources.
my own patched kernel (almost the same .config, except for different set of patches) worked OK, but it hasnt got devfs

so now i'm compiling it with devfs and check it in hour.

BTW, using chpax utility on /sbin/init caused this broken kernel to run init, but failed (but no panic this time) few scripts further.
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toruviel.

Guiyon · n00b Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 7

Thanks for the help! It ended up being the grsecurity that was screwing the boot up.

toruviel · n00b Joined: 16 Oct 2002 Posts: 2 Location: POLAND

ok, after compilation of my own patched kernel it works OK.
what is strange, my kernel also contains grsecurity (and its enabled) but it just work :-)

looks like grsecurity from gentoo-sources is different (because AFAIK i got the same .config grsecurity options in both kernels).

Anyway short solution is: turn off grsecurity.
Long one: tweak grsecurity in your kernel until it starts working

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toruviel.

kinsta · Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2002 3:27 am Post subject:

I've got the same problem with no hope in sight.

Here's the partitions:
/dev/hda1 Windows (UDE & Upaint & UnrealEd!)
/dev/hda2 /
/dev/hda5 /boot
/dev/hda6 /usr
/dev/hda7 /home
/dev/hda8 /tmp
/dev/hda13 swap
/dev/hda14 /var

The missing partitions are blank, ext3 and
reserved for web & database & lfs.

Did not compile grsecurity into kernel, at all.
Added devfs=mount and compliled into kernel. Also
dmesg still complains about devfs.
Have a /boot holding grub & kernel plus /
Recompiled both gentoo & vanilla kernels.
Poured over menu.lst and grub. Everything seems
in order. If I can see the splash screen I kind of
assume that I understand the 0-based grub config.
Windows also boots perfectly from grub...kernel
problem?

I'm no expert but isn't the kernel looking for a
file to run immediately after load? for example initrd?
isn't that what init= is suggesting? Again, I'm not even
a knowledgeable person but I remember reading about
initrd somewhere, LinuxDreamcast? LFS?

Absolutely no idea where to go. I regret blowing away
a fully functional 1.2.

Any help much much appreciated. Thanks!
Mak

kinsta · Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2002 12:34 am Post subject: Got It?!?!

I just booted my new 1.4_rc1 successfully! I did some digging on
the init and what __I__ (your mileage may very) believed helped
was setting the root device for the kernel using the rdev command.

With rdev I set the image and location of said image. For example:

cp arch/i386/bzImage /boot/bzImage-install
ln -s /boot/vmlinuz /boot/bzImage-install
rdev /boot/vmlinuz /dev/hda5

Maybe giving that a try will help someone else.

I will have to say that the grub part of the installation guide
was confusing to me.

Good Luck
Mak

halo666 · n00b Joined: 27 Oct 2002 Posts: 1

Hi fellow gentoo users,

I had the same problem, but solved it in a different way.

My setup (gentoo 1.4r1):
/boot /dev/hda3 reiserfs
/ /dev/hda5 reiserfs
/usr /dev/hda6 reiserfs

Having upgraded to grub 0.92 because standard 0.90 doesn't seem to like reiserfs, I got the same Kernel Panic.

The point that made me curious was that on grub's boot screen, I had to manually edit my boot-entry kernel /boot/bzImage root=hda3 to:
kernel /bzImage root=/dev/hda3 . However, the I didn't reach the login dialog due to Kernel Panic.

Then I restarted using the live cd, mounted my partitions and chrooted as in the installation instructions, and changed my /boot/grub/grub.conf to:
kernel /bzImage root=/dev/hda5 . This solved my problem.

As I'm new to gentoo, I don't exactly know why gentoo gets confused when the /boot is on a different partition than /.

halo666