StoreOnce Backup Storage
1748214 Members
3054 Online
108759 Solutions
New Discussion

Re: memory for crash kernel not within permissible range

 
Acd2005
Occasional Advisor

memory for crash kernel not within permissible range

I have a D2D4009fc Backup unit and this is not booting up correctly and comes up with the following error memory for crash kernel not within permissible range. I have reset the bios settings to default but am still not able to boot the system up correctly. Any assistance on getting to resolve this would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

 

P.S. This thread has been moved from Storage > General to Disk-Based Backup. - Hp Forum Moderator

5 REPLIES 5
Matti_Kurkela
Honored Contributor

Re: memory for crash kernel not within permissible range

The message is not related to BIOS settings at all.

 

It comes from the Linux kernel. You're running a kdump-capable kernel, but don't have kdump configured.(There is no "crashkernel=128M" or similar option in the kernel boot option line.)

 

In that case, the message is completely normal.

 

kdump is a kernel crash dump system: if the kernel panics or hangs (a system hang is detected through the NMI watchdog), kdump attempts to save enough diagnostic information so that you can later use it to find out what went wrong.

 

If you don't need to capture kernel crash dumps, you can ignore the message.

 

If the system does not boot correctly, you should try booting without the "quiet" boot option. The kernel will then produce a lot of messages while starting up. Analyzing those messages would probably help in identifying the reason

MK
Acd2005
Occasional Advisor

Re: memory for crash kernel not within permissible range

Hello MK

Thanks for the reply. The thing is the D2D box comes with HP's saved linux config that holds the D2D functionality. This in turn does not allow editing since we have no access to the kernel. Was hoping that there might be another way to identify the issue on this.

 

Ideas anyone? Have already replaced the d2d flash disk that holds the linux since the previous one would not boot at all. The second flash disk that has been installed gets to the screenshot that displays the message 

 

Booting 'HP D2D Linux'

 

and pauses for 5 seconds on

Memory for crash kernel (0x0 to 0x0) notwithin permissible range

 

Memory for crash kernel (0x0 to 0x0) notwithin permissible range

 

 and reboots, - this goes on in a loop and never recovers.

 

Could this be the physical memory perhaps or?

 

Matti_Kurkela
Honored Contributor

Re: memory for crash kernel not within permissible range

Oh, I missed the fact that it's an "appliance" system.

 

The messages visible in the screenshot do offer some more clues, however:

 

The "root (hd0,0)" and the next 6 lines look exactly like standard messages produced by the GRUB bootloader.

 

The kernel command line includes "console=ttyS0,115200n8 console=tty0", which means kernel console output will be directed both to a serial port (ttyS0) and the VGA console (tty0). This indicates there is a serial port that might be usable for diagnostics/troubleshooting.

 

The 5-second pause is pretty normal. If not for the "quiet" boot option, the kernel would output several hundred lines of diagnostic messages as it goes about identifying essential system features and starting up various drivers. It might be that the kernel actually spits out an error message, but reboots immediately after that, causing the VGA display to clear faster than is humanly possible to read the message.

 

But the serial port would allow capturing the output: connect it to a PC with a serial port, then start up a terminal emulator program (e.g. Hyperterminal on Windows, Minicom on Linux) and set it to capture all the data it sees to a file. The serial port should be set to the speed of 115200 bps, and parameters 8-n-1 (8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit).

 

GRUB might have been configured with minimal timeout values, making it hard to interrupt it to gain access to the GRUB boot prompt. But since you said you could access the system BIOS, I guess the bootloader probably has not been made too difficult to access either: if you can see the BIOS boot messages on the screen, try tapping the keys (arrow keys, spacebar or Shift keys) repeatedly while the system is booting, just before the "Booting 'HP D2D Linux'" text is about to appear. Having a few key presses in the keyboard buffer at the time GRUB starts up should allow you to interrupt the boot and access the GRUB boot menu, unless it's been totally blocked.

 

If you can access the boot menu, you could press "E" for edit mode, then select the "kernel" line and press "E" again to edit it. These edits would not be saved to disk: they would be in effect for the duration of one boot attempt only, so it is safe. Removing the "panic=60 quiet" part of the line would allow you to see more diagnostic messages, which should help in determining what is actually going wrong with your D2D box.

 

The "panic=60" causes the kernel to reboot 60 seconds after any kernel panic (=serious error).

MK
Acd2005
Occasional Advisor

Re: memory for crash kernel not within permissible range

MK - thanks for the pointers, I did try as you said to press a couple of keys to get to the GRUB boot menu however it seems that it is locked down (as it should be :) )

 

The console is not throwing any outputs as i did connect a serial cable to the device and to a laptop.  This thing just seems hard to get to inorder to figure out what exactly is the issue.

 

Any other ideas???

 

Acd2005
Occasional Advisor

Re: memory for crash kernel not within permissible range

Guys, anyone else care to assist with an idea on what alse to check?