[RHCE] Ripe exam question.

[Holton, Steven [NC1:JR04:EXCH]]

I just tripped over this showstopper which seems just perfectly 
ripe for an RHCE exam question. Here's to hoping the rest of you won't
be as stumped as I when you see it.

Scenario: Standard Red Hat system fails to boot. The final error
messages are 

   Mounting /proc filesystem
   Creating root device
   Mounting root filesystem
   kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds.
   EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data made.
   pivotroot: pivot_root(/sysroot,/sysroot/initrd) failed: 2
   Freeing unused kernel memory: 220k freed
   Kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.


Here's what's going on: After booting onto the initrd, the kernel
must switch to the real root filesystem. It uses pivot_root to
do this, and depends on there being a mount point under the system
root (which only exists virtually) for the real root filesystem to 
mount at. 

How to fix:
After booting the system on a rescue disk, make a directory:
  /initrd 
at the root level of the / filesystem.  Simple to figure out
if you have Google available, completely non-intuitive otherwise.

Just remember: pivot_root == mkdir /initrd

-- 
Steve Holton                                       ESN 35-18811