grub failing load stage 2 when serial console --stop=[1|2]
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
grub (Ubuntu) |
Confirmed
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
Binary package hint: grub
A curious error with grub's serial console configuration.
Initially, we only saw this on a single machine, an HP DL145.
We have reports of this happening on other hardware, as well as other Linux distributions.
An installation is performed with console=
The installter writes /boot/grub/menu.lst with the first two lines being:
serial --unit=0 --speed=9600 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1
terminal serial
Additionally, console=
It seems that the kernel console redirection to serial works, however the grub serial console does not. In fact, it hangs grub, just after loading stage 1.5.
The next step would be to build and install a special debug grub package on that machine which would verbosely log its doings on load. This would require an IS person in the lab to watch the physical console, as any remote developer is entirely blind at any time when reproducing this problem.
*** WORK AROUND ***
The problem can be worked around by commenting out in menu.lst:
# serial --unit=0 --speed=9600 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1
# terminal serial
This will remove the ability to see the Grub menu, however, as soon as the kernel is booted with console=
Note that the only two values allowed for stop are 1 and 2. See:
http://
Setting --stop=0 in menu.lst "works", however for undesired reasons. Basically, 0 is an invalid value, and as such, Grub just skips that line. In which case, commenting the line out actually makes more sense.
:-Dustin
I've come across this bug on another machine, not an hp DL145.