Workstation wont boot properly after update

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jody
Posts: 53
Joined: 2015/05/12 12:58:08

Workstation wont boot properly after update

Post by jody » 2021/09/06 08:15:06

This morning i did 'yum update' on our 3 workstations.
Now, two of them wont boot properly:
Machine 1:
If i either boot 3.10.0-1160.36.2.el7.x86_64 or 3.10.0-1160.31.1.el7.x86_64 (which was already there before the update),
the boot process stops after the lines

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...
[ OK ] Started Command Scheduler.
[ OK ] Started Load CPU microcode update.
[ OK ] Started Network Manager.
       Starting NetworkManager  Wait Online...  
       Starting Hostname Service...
[7.01399] kvm: disabled by bios
Sometimes there is a second 'kvm' line.

Machine 2:
If i either boot 3.10.0-1160.36.2.el7.x86_64 or 3.10.0-1160.31.1.el7.x86_64 (which was already there before the update) or 3.10.0-1160.25.1.el7.x86_64 (which was also already there before the update),the boot process stops after the lines

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...
[ OK ] Started Command Scheduler.
[ OK ] Started Job spooling tools.
[ OK ] Started Load CPU microcode update.
[ OK ] Started Account Service
However, on this machine i can boot 3.10.0-1160.24.1.el7.x86_64[/b] without any problems

Is there a way to fix this issue without a complete reinstall?

tunk
Posts: 1205
Joined: 2017/02/22 15:08:17

Re: Workstation wont boot properly after update

Post by tunk » 2021/09/06 12:18:26

Don't know what your problem is.
The newest kernel is 3.10.0-1160.41.1.el7.x86_64, so you may try yum update again.
What's the hardware, or is there any hardware differences?

jody
Posts: 53
Joined: 2015/05/12 12:58:08

Re: Workstation wont boot properly after update

Post by jody » 2021/09/06 13:18:25

The problem is that i cant do 'yum update' because the workstations get stuck during the boot process, so i never can log in and execute a command.
At the Moment i can't give you the hardware details of the WS - i usually check /proc/cpuinfo and /proc/meminfo (which i can't do currently)

Is there a way to boot (maybe from an usb stick) which would enable me to run 'yum/update'?

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TrevorH
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Re: Workstation wont boot properly after update

Post by TrevorH » 2021/09/06 17:29:32

Have you ever installed proprietary video drivers from AMD or nvidia? If you did and did not use the ELRepo copy of the drivers then you must reinstall those video drivers each and every time there is a kernel update.

Can you use Ctrl-Alt-F2 to switch to a different terminal? If you can then you can login as root then and reinstall the drivers and all should be good.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

jody
Posts: 53
Joined: 2015/05/12 12:58:08

Re: Workstation wont boot properly after update

Post by jody » 2021/09/08 07:45:48

Yes, ctrl-alt-F2 worked - thanks!

From the system log i found out that the nvidia driver did not match. A first attempt to reinstall it failed because there was not enough space on the boot partition. It was filled up with old kernel files. I deleted some of the oldest of these files and after this the reinstallation of kmod-nivida worked.

How can i properly delete old kernel files?
I suspect that just deleting them is not enough, because when i do ' yum reinstall kernel.x86_64', it proposes to reinstall the kernels 24.1, 25.1, 31.1, and 36.2.

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TrevorH
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Re: Workstation wont boot properly after update

Post by TrevorH » 2021/09/08 09:41:58

rpm -q kernel
yum remove kernel-$someversion kernel-$someotherversion

ELRepo ship nvidia drivers that do not require reinstallation every time a new kernel comes along. Or rpmfusion do a package set that requires dkms to rebuild them on boot.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

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jlehtone
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Location: Finland

Re: Workstation wont boot properly after update

Post by jlehtone » 2021/09/08 12:22:14

Package yum-utils includes utility package-cleanup.

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package-cleanup --oldkernels
Selects older kernels for deletion. It keeps two latest (and currently running kernel)

Furthermore, it does not only remove package "kernel", but also related packages.
The removal is not automatic; there is the usual yum's Are you sure (N/y)?

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TrevorH
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Re: Workstation wont boot properly after update

Post by TrevorH » 2021/09/08 12:32:25

package-cleanup --oldkernels works on CentOS 7 but not 8. For some reason I thought this was 8...
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

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jlehtone
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Joined: 2007/12/11 08:17:33
Location: Finland

Re: Workstation wont boot properly after update

Post by jlehtone » 2021/09/08 13:12:47

Indeed. In 8 one could do:

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dnf remove $(dnf repoquery --installonly --latest-limit=-2 -q)
I only recently found utility show-installed (also in yum-utils of 7, but not in 8).


Some operations recreate initrd-images for all(?) installed kernels. That could render earlier kernels unbootable.

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