asked on 1/4/2013

Kernel Panic on startup on Redhat - please, please help for fix !

I have a Redhat system that was fully working just now.

I started a "yum update" - but decided that the 650Mb of updates probably wasn't a good time to update. So I typed "N". I then restarted the system.

I'm now getting a "Kernel Panic - not syncing: attempted to kill init!"

When I go into grub, I can see two options :

Oracle Linux Server-uek (2.6.32-100.34.el6uek.x86_64)
Oracle Linux Server (2.6.32-131.0.15.el6.x86_64)

I've tried booting both to no avail.

My kernel arguments for the second option is :

root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.32-131.0.15.el6.x86_64 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_ussoadev02-lv_root rd_LVM_LV=vg_ussoadev02/lv_root rd_LVM_LV=vg_ussoadev02/lv_swap rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en.US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us crashkernel=auto rhgb quiet
initrd /initramfs-2.6.32-131.0.15.el6.x86.x86_64.img

Heres the thing - I think when I ran a yum update, it updated the grub.conf to the above version - but its sister (which I didn't run a yum update on) has 2.6.32-100.34.1.el6.x86_64 as its version.

How do I check from grub command line to see what kernel I have available

How to I modify my grub.conf so that I can put it back to the right kernel

I appreciate all the help you can provide with this in advance !

Linux Linux Distributions Linux OS Dev

Last Comment

ibrahim52

1/4/2013

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

ibrahim52

1/4/2013

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ibrahim52

1/4/2013

Otherwise , use this tool. I have come over such issues so many times and got it fixed with "boot-repair" give it a try, if you want.

http://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair/home/Home/

altquark

1/4/2013

ASKER

ok - I can only get into grub. I cannot install a rescue disk or apply a USB to this system.

altquark

1/4/2013

ASKER

aha - I managed to boot into single-user mode - I had to add "selinux=0" at the end - which reminded me, I was trying to change the system from selinux=targeted to selinux=permissive, and I managed to change the wrong value in selinux. The system is back up and running now ! Holy smokes, that was scary !!!

altquark

1/4/2013

ASKER

Thankyou. Not the complete answer, but it was a good link that got me started !

ibrahim52

1/4/2013

I am glad I was able to help you any way and Thank you :) to posting your experience so it is easy for other users facing similar issues. Thanks once again.