Help with diagnosing kernel HDC errors on a CentOS Virtual Machine

can be related to this:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1007840

@torque_200bc

I saw that link, but thats hda; this is for hdc. Isn't HDC the hard drive controller? i'm not totally positive how to rule that out. Again, its a VM - and I checked resolution #3 in smartd.conf -- that entry wasn't there. Additionally, no one is opening/closing the CDROM on the host machine as its locked away in a cabinet at our co-lo /// at least they better NOT be! :)

hda or hdc is is just a ID for the device. If you have configured two IDE harddrive for the VM, then the cdrom will be hdc; if you have configure the harddrive as scsi drive, then the harddrive will be sda,sdb, and the cdrom is hda now.


Are you running this VM on a ESX server, or just workstation, or player? One solution is just disconnect the cdrom device ( if you don't need it for the VM).  Most time I would just mount a iso file to VM as cdrom, if I need anything.

As jackie said, the name of the device is variable. try

#dmesg | grep hd

this command should tell if the dvd is in hdc or not. If it is, then you should not worry about the error.

As lame as this sounds, I can't get on the host VM server right now, so I can't check virtual CDROM settings at the moment. Although,  I agree, mounting ISO is the way to go, especially in a remote connection such as I'm on.  the host box is a DELL PowerEdge 1950, utilizing SAS drives.

@torque, running dmesg below

 

dmesg | grep hd
hdc: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { AbortedCommand }
hdc: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdc: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { AbortedCommand }
hdc: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdc: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { AbortedCommand }
hdc: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdc: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { AbortedCommand }

Select allOpen in new window

doesnt seem to give much info aside from what i've already posted. I ran iostat -x 1, and got this:

Device:         rrqm/s   wrqm/s   r/s   w/s   rsec/s   wsec/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz   await  svctm  %util
sda               0.00     0.00  0.00  0.00     0.00     0.00     0.00     0.00    0.00   0.00   0.00
sda1              0.00     0.00  0.00  0.00     0.00     0.00     0.00     0.00    0.00   0.00   0.00
sdb               0.00     1.00  0.00 12.00     0.00   112.00     9.33     0.24   19.67   4.00   4.80
sdb1              0.00     1.00  0.00 12.00     0.00   112.00     9.33     0.24   19.67   4.00   4.80
sdc               0.00     0.00  0.00  4.00     0.00    32.00     8.00     0.05   14.00   8.00   3.20
sdc1              0.00     0.00  0.00  0.00     0.00     0.00     0.00     0.00    0.00   0.00   0.00
sdc2              0.00     0.00  0.00  4.00     0.00    32.00     8.00     0.05   14.00   8.00   3.20
dm-0              0.00     0.00  0.00  2.00     0.00    16.00     8.00     0.05   28.00  16.00   3.20
dm-1              0.00     0.00  0.00  0.00     0.00     0.00     0.00     0.00    0.00   0.00   0.00

Select allOpen in new window

doesnt seem like the host box is even doing much in terms of drive activity.

iostat -x 1 on the VM

Device:         rrqm/s   wrqm/s   r/s   w/s   rsec/s   wsec/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz   await  svctm  %util
sda               0.00     0.00  0.00  0.00     0.00     0.00     0.00     0.00    0.00   0.00   0.00
dm-0              0.00     0.00  0.00  0.00     0.00     0.00     0.00     0.00    0.00   0.00   0.00
dm-1              0.00     0.00  0.00  0.00     0.00     0.00     0.00     0.00    0.00   0.00   0.00

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           0.00    0.00    0.00    0.00    0.00  100.00

Device:         rrqm/s   wrqm/s   r/s   w/s   rsec/s   wsec/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz   await  svctm  %util
sda               0.00     9.90  0.00  2.97     0.00   102.97    34.67     0.00    1.00   1.00   0.30
dm-0              0.00     0.00  0.00 12.87     0.00   102.97     8.00     0.01    1.00   0.23   0.30
dm-1              0.00     0.00  0.00  0.00     0.00     0.00     0.00     0.00    0.00   0.00   0.00

Select allOpen in new window

iostat data may be unnecessary but I guess I'm thinking I might see some serious thrashing if I was getting drive failures on here.

The iostat command didn't show a "hdc" device.  you have two "dm-?" (device mapper) device, which can be IDE or SCSI hard drive.

you can chec the document: http://linux.die.net/man/8/dmsetup

run "dmsetup ls" and "dmsetup info", You will found out what's the real device name. I am guessing they are hda and hdb (  two IDE drive), then your cdrom will be hdc.

If it's cdrom, then you have nothing to worry.  

@jackiechen858

Boom!! sweet!!

grep hd /var/log/dmesg
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0x1058-0x105f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio
hdc: VMware Virtual IDE CDROM Drive, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
SCSI device sda: 41943040 512-byte hdwr sectors (21475 MB)
SCSI device sda: 41943040 512-byte hdwr sectors (21475 MB)
hdc: ATAPI 1X CD-ROM drive, 32kB Cache, UDMA(33)

Select allOpen in new window

booyah. that's what I needed. will just ignore this.

thanks guys