Server not booting - /proc not able to mount

[Granite]

Hi Admins,

Hereby my server stops ending with errors as below:
Mounting proc failed, /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit:line 90:41 segmentation fault LC_ALL=c grep"q /initrd/proc/mount
configuring kernel parameter=error:/proc must me mounted

To mount /proc mount at boot /etc/fstab line like /proc /proc defaults
in the meantime mount /proc -t proc failed.
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit:line 182:65 segmentation fault LC_ALL=c grep "iq" nousb" /proc/cmd line 2 > /dev/null

/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit:line 182:67 segmentation fault LC_ALL=c grep -q usb /proc/devices 2 > /dev/null

--> I have tried editing the boot-loader(GRUB) file to single, but still not booting.

Thxs in advance for all valuable replies,
Regds,
Granite.

[Ivan Ferreira]

Segmentation fault is not a good thing.

I think that you should boot with the installation CD in rescue mode.

Verify filesystems integrity with fsck. Also, you can chroot to the real installation (in fedora/red hat is mounted on /mnt/sysimage) and verify the consistence of the packages using rpm -V.

[Patrick Terlisten]

Hello Granite,

do you change something on your /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit file?

Regards,
Patrick

[Thomas Bianco]

is it possible this kernel doesn't have proc support compiled in?

best bet: as above, grab a live CD or rescue disk. gentoo is a fine choice. they're "install" disk is basically a live CD designed to compile a system into place.

you'd want to check the kernel config, as well as the /etc/fstab suggested by the error

[Ralph Grothe]

Could you check your initial RAM disk?

e.g.
(this assumes you have a recent RH or Fedora, which use gziped cpio archives)

# mkdir /tmp/initrd

# cd /tmp/initrd

# gzip -dc /boot/initrd-2.6.9-5.0.3.EL.img |cpio -id
4084 blocks

# ls -l
total 10
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Nov 9 00:54 bin
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Nov 9 00:54 dev
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 1024 Nov 9 00:54 etc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1308 Nov 9 00:54 init
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Nov 9 00:54 lib
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Nov 9 00:54 loopfs
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Nov 9 00:54 proc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Nov 9 00:54 sbin -> bin
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Nov 9 00:54 sys
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Nov 9 00:54 sysroot

# grep proc init
mount -t proc /proc /proc
echo Mounted /proc filesystem
echo -n "/sbin/hotplug" > /proc/sys/kernel/hotplug

Does your initrd look similar?
(n.b. mine is from CentOS 4 which is a free RHEL 4 clone)

As another responder mentioned,
are you using the original or an own built kernel (which possibly hasn't procfs support enabled)?

In the kernel's .config this must be set

# grep ^CONFIG_PROC_FS /boot/config-2.6.9-5.0.3.EL
CONFIG_PROC_FS=y