install to iSCSI target results in system that will not boot

[Roger Mach]

Binary package hint: base-installer

Installation of 10.04.1 server to iSCSI target on a diskless system. Installation completed but on first boot, the following messages were seen (the first four lines repeated many times, I show only two instances). After dropping to a shell I executed several commands as suggested by the error message, that output is shown as well):

Begin: Retrying network configuration ...
ipconfig: eth0: SIOCGIFINDEX: No such device
ipconfig: no devices to configure
/scripts/local-top/iscsi: .: line 421: can't open /tmp/net-eth0.conf
Begin: Retrying network configuration ...
ipconfig: eth0: SIOCGIFINDEX: No such device
ipconfig: no devices to configure
/scripts/local-top/iscsi: .: line 421: can't open /tmp/net-eth0.conf
[ 190.780964] Loading iSCSI transport class v2.0-870.
[ 190.796453] iscsi: registered transport (tcp)
iscsistart: transport class version 2.0-870. iscsid version 2.0-871
iscsistart: Logging into iqn.1986-03.com.ibm:iscsi.disk2 9.47.67.50:3260,1
iscsistart: can not connect to iSCSI daemon (111)!
iscsistart: version 2.0-871
iscsistart: cannot make a connection to 9.47.67.50:3260 (-1,101)
iscsistart: initiator reported error (4 - encountered connection failure)
Done.
Gave up waiting for root device. Common problems:
 - Boot args (cat /proc/cmdline)
   - Check rootdelay= (did the system wait long enough?)
   - Check root= (did the system wait for the right device?)
 - Missing modules (cat /proc/modules; ls /dev)
ALERT! /dev/disk/by-uuid/b30b2538-16d4-46f7-a14e-a2d0879400ef does not exist. Dropping to a shell!

BusyBox v1.13.3 (Ubuntu 1:1.13.3-1ubuntu11) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

(initramfs) cat /proc/cmdline
BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-24-server root=UUID=b30b2538-16d4-46f7-a14e-a2d0879400ef ro console=tty console=ttyS1,115200n8
(initramfs) cat /proc/modules
crc32c 2983 0 - Live 0xffffffffa002f000
iscsi_tcp 10188 0 - Live 0xffffffffa00a8000
libiscsi_tcp 16788 1 iscsi_tcp, Live 0xffffffffa00a1000
libiscsi 44398 2 iscsi_tcp,libiscsi_tcp, Live 0xffffffffa008d000
scsi_transport_iscsi 38402 2 iscsi_tcp,libiscsi, Live 0xffffffffa007a000
usbhid 41084 0 - Live 0xffffffffa006d000
hid 83408 1 usbhid, Live 0xffffffffa0056000
mptsas 50591 0 - Live 0xffffffffa0042000
mptscsih 37135 1 mptsas, Live 0xffffffffa0031000
mptbase 91642 2 mptsas,mptscsih, Live 0xffffffffa0011000
scsi_transport_sas 33021 1 mptsas, Live 0xffffffffa0000000
(initramfs) ls /dev
vga_arbiter tty18 tty57 net
rfkill tty19 tty58 usbmon0
mem tty20 tty59 usbmon1
null tty21 tty60 bus
port tty22 tty61 usbmon2
zero tty23 tty62 usbmon3
full tty24 tty63 usbmon4
random tty25 ptmx usbmon5
urandom tty26 hpet usbmon6
kmsg tty27 ttyS2 usbmon7
oldmem tty28 ttyS3 usbmon8
mcelog tty29 ttyS0 input
snapshot tty30 ttyS1 psaux
ecryptfs tty31 ram0 rtc0
fuse tty32 ram1 mapper
tty tty33 ram2 cpu_dma_latency
console tty34 ram3 network_latency
tty0 tty35 ram4 network_throughput
vcs tty36 ram5 pts
vcsa tty37 ram6 block
vcs1 tty38 ram7 char
vcsa1 tty39 ram8 rtc
tty1 tty40 ram9 hidraw0
tty2 tty41 ram10 hidraw1
tty3 tty42 ram11 hidraw2
tty4 tty43 ram12 bsg
tty5 tty44 ram13 vcs2
tty6 tty45 ram14 vcsa2
tty7 tty46 ram15 vcs3
tty8 tty47 loop0 vcsa3
tty9 tty48 loop1 vcs4
tty10 tty49 loop2 vcsa4
tty11 tty50 loop3 vcs5
tty12 tty51 loop4 vcsa5
tty13 tty52 loop5 vcs6
tty14 tty53 loop6 vcsa6
tty15 tty54 loop7
tty16 tty55 pktcdvd
tty17 tty56 ppp
(initramfs) reboot
[ 333.242745] md: stopping all md devices.
[ 334.245499] Restarting system.
[ 334.248618] machine restart

This issue appears somewhat similar to launchpad bug 546964, however the suggested workaround in that bug (putting 'ip=:::::eth0:dhcp' on the kernel command line) did not resolve this issue.