[Bug 1870189] Re: initramfs does not get loaded

Mon May 4 13:40:35 UTC 2020

Hmmm, I am not using the ISO, but rather the pre-installed cloudimg, and
I am not so sure it is actually fixed. I just tried out the latest one,
and can confirm the issue still persists with it:

https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/focal/20200430.1/focal-server-cloudimg-
amd64.img

Here is the output from booting:

[    0.000000] Linux version 5.4.0-28-generic (buildd at lgw01-amd64-036) (gcc version 9.3.0 (Ubuntu 9.3.0-10ubuntu2)) #32-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 22 17:40:10 UTC 2020 (Ubuntu 5.4.0-28.32-generic 5.4.30)
[    0.000000] Command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.4.0-28-generic root=PARTUUID=be1f3b17-864d-49f8-8249-5fb0edc7e606 ro console=tty1 console=ttyS0 panic=-1
...
[    0.999771] VFS: Cannot open root device "PARTUUID=be1f3b17-864d-49f8-8249-5fb0edc7e606" or unknown-block(0,0): error -6
[    1.001738] Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
[    1.003295] 0b00         1048575 sr0
[    1.003295]  driver: sr
[    1.004578] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)
[    1.006119] CPU: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 5.4.0-28-generic #32-Ubuntu
[    1.007522] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS Ubuntu-1.8.2-1ubuntu1 04/01/2014
[    1.009254] Call Trace:
[    1.009790]  dump_stack+0x6d/0x9a
[    1.010488]  panic+0x101/0x2e3
[    1.011137]  mount_block_root+0x23f/0x2e8
[    1.011931]  mount_root+0x38/0x3a
[    1.012624]  prepare_namespace+0x13f/0x194
[    1.013443]  kernel_init_freeable+0x231/0x255
[    1.014319]  ? rest_init+0xb0/0xb0
[    1.015018]  kernel_init+0xe/0x100
[    1.015721]  ret_from_fork+0x35/0x40
[    1.016842] Kernel Offset: 0x1ac00000 from 0xffffffff81000000 (relocation range: 0xffffffff80000000-0xffffffffbfffffff)

Upon reboot, initrdfail will now be set, and therefore it will actually load the initrd on the second reboot. But, because I am trying to configure the machine on the first boot using cloud-init NoCloud, it needs to actually work on the first boot. (Anyways, I think it's a moot point that first time booting should work.)

In the above, the "panic=-1" followed by "Cannot open root device"
indicates that there is still something amiss, at least with the
cloudimg distribution. I can file a different ticket for cloudimg, if it
would be more appropriate. Please advise. Thanks!

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1870189

Title:
  initramfs does not get loaded

Status in grub2 package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in linux-azure package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  A Gen-1 Ubuntu 19.10 VM on Azure was created and upgraded to Ubuntu
  20.04 by “do-release-upgrade –d”.

  Then the latest Ubuntu v5.6 kernel was installed from
  https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.6/. As soon as a
  reboot was performed, a panic with the v5.6 kernel occured because the
  rootfs can not be found.

  It turns out by default, initramfs does not get loaded:

  /boot/grub/grub.cfg:
  menuentry 'Ubuntu' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-simple-3d2737e8-
  b95a-42bf-bac1-bb6fb4cda87f' {
  …
          if [ "${initrdfail}" = 1 ]; then
            linux /boot/vmlinuz-5.6.0-050600-generic root=PARTUUID=bc3d472f-401e-4774-affa-df1acba65a73 ro  console=tty1 console=ttyS0 earlyprintk=ttyS0 ignore_loglevel sysrq_always_enabled unknown_nmi_panic
            initrd        /boot/initrd.img-5.6.0-050600-generic
          else
            linux /boot/vmlinuz-5.6.0-050600-generic root=PARTUUID=bc3d472f-401e-4774-affa-df1acba65a73 ro  console=tty1 console=ttyS0 earlyprintk=ttyS0 ignore_loglevel sysrq_always_enabled unknown_nmi_panic panic=-1
            #Dexuan: here the initrd line is missing!
          fi
          initrdfail
  }

  As we can see, Ubuntu only uses the initrd.img if initrdfail=1. Normally, initrdfail = 0, so when we boot the v5.6 kernel for the first time, we must hit the “fail to mount rootfs” panic and the kernel will automatically reboot….   

  Also, the “initrdfail” here marks initrdfail=1, so when the kernel
  boots for the 2nd time, the kernel should successfully boot up.  Next,
  when the kernel boots for the 3rd time, it panics again since the
  userspace program resets initrdfail to 0, and next time when the
  kernel boots, it can boot up successfully -- this
  “panic/success/panic/success” pattern repeats forever…

  The linux-azure kernels are not affected since they have the vmbus driver and storage drivers built-in (i.e. “=y”):
  /boot/config-5.3.0-1013-azure:CONFIG_HYPERV_STORAGE=y
  /boot/config-5.3.0-1013-azure:CONFIG_HYPERV=y
  /boot/config-5.4.0-1006-azure:CONFIG_HYPERV_STORAGE=y
  /boot/config-5.4.0-1006-azure:CONFIG_HYPERV=y
  /boot/config-5.6.0-050600-generic:CONFIG_HYPERV_STORAGE=m
  /boot/config-5.6.0-050600-generic:CONFIG_HYPERV=m
  The v5.6 kernel uses =m rather than =y, so is affected here.

  It looks the setting may be intentional, but we should not assume a customer kernel must have the necessary vmbus/storage drivers built-in. 

  This issue only happens to the Ubuntu Marketplace image (19.10 and maybe 19.04 as well?) on Azure. 
  We installed a Ubuntu  20.04 VM from the .iso file from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/pending/ and don’t see the strange grub issue.

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