ltsp in the device name on the LTSP server causes boot to hang

[Frederick J. Henderson]

Hi!

I was preparing a LTSP server to put into service. I tried booting the server without a network cable attached and was surprised to see that the server did not boot to the login screen. I was instead presented with the following:

BusyBox v1.21.1 (Ubuntu 1:1.21.0-1ubuntu1) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.
(initramfs)

I believe that the problem is that the ltsp in the device name confuses the ltsp boot scripts into thinking that this is an ltsp client. It then sees that it does not have a network connection and therefore cannot boot and drops to a shell.

Further information about the LTSP server:

╰─>$ lsb_release
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS
Release: 14.04
Codename: trusty

╰─>$ dpkg-query -W ltsp-server
ltsp-server 5.5.5~r2703+p1238+201512091628~ubuntu14.04.1

╰─>$ cat /proc/cmdline
BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-4.2.0-34-generic root=/dev/mapper/henderson--ltsp-root_file_system ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7

╰─>$ sudo lvs
  LV VG Attr LSize Pool Origin Data% Move Log Copy% Convert
  home henderson-ltsp -wi-ao--- 85.90g
  opt henderson-ltsp -wi-ao--- 9.00g
  root_file_system henderson-ltsp -wi-ao--- 13.00g
  swap_1 henderson-ltsp -wi-ao--- 7.99g
  tmp henderson-ltsp -wi-ao--- 2.00g
  usr henderson-ltsp -wi-ao--- 10.00g
  var henderson-ltsp -wi-ao--- 8.00g

╰─>$ mount
/dev/mapper/henderson--ltsp-root_file_system on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (rw)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755)
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /run/user type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=104857600,mode=0755)
none on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw)
/dev/mapper/henderson--ltsp-usr on /usr type ext4 (rw)
/dev/mapper/henderson--ltsp-tmp on /tmp type ext4 (rw)
/dev/mapper/henderson--ltsp-opt on /opt type ext4 (rw)
/dev/sda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
/dev/mapper/henderson--ltsp-var on /var type ext4 (rw)
/dev/mapper/henderson--ltsp-home on /home type ext4 (rw)
systemd on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,none,name=systemd)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=george)

[Alkis Georgopoulos (alkisg)]

Funny, I finished working on this a few hours before it got reported. :)
Fix committed in http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ltsp-upstream/ltsp/ltsp-trunk/revision/2735.
Get the modified scripts, put them in the respective places under /usr/share/initramfs-tools and run sudo update-initramfs -u.

[Alkis Georgopoulos (alkisg)]

Fix released in LTSP 5.5.9.