CentOS 7.0 And Reboot Failure

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Everyone,

I have installed CentOS 7.0 on my homework machine in order to take a test drive with it, and am low on the learning curve with it at this point. I have a small Gateway SX2855-UB12P.

I have a critical hurdle in that when I try a reboot or when I do a
‘shutdown now -r’ command the system will start a reboot process but hangs right after the os choices are presented.

My install process started with the server version, and I added the gnome desktop latter. I also changed the boot level to 5.

Has anyone else had this problem, or any suggestions as to a remedy.

Thanks,

Greg Ennis

23 thoughts on - CentOS 7.0 And Reboot Failure

  • Everyone,

    I have installed CentOS 7.0 on my homework machine in order to take a test drive with it, and am low on the learning curve with it at this point. I have a small Gateway SX2855-UB12P.

    I have a critical hurdle in that when I try a reboot or when I do a
    ‘shutdown now -r’ command the system will start a reboot process but hangs right after the os choices are presented.

    My install process started with the server version, and I added the gnome desktop latter. I also changed the boot level to 5.

    Has anyone else had this problem, or any suggestions as to a remedy.

    Thanks,

    Greg Ennis

    ————————————–

  • Do you mean the runlevel? If so, are you sure that you changed it correctly?

    CentOS 7 doesn’t use runlevels set in inittab like previous versions did. I see that fact is actually noted in /etc/inittab, along with the expected way to do it.

  • CentOS 7 runs systemd ,so
    may need to use ‘systemctl reboot’ to reboot and ‘systemctl poweroff’ to shutdown system.
    I suggest to read systemctl manpage ( towards the end)

    hope this helps.

  • This actually bring up an interesting question that I’ve not yet seen an answer to:

    What is the equivalent of runlevel 1 on CentOS 7 and how do you get there?

  • I think the shutdown command on CentOS 7 already reflects that.

    # ls -l /usr/sbin/shutdown lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 16 Oct 23 16:52 /usr/sbin/shutdown ->
    ../bin/systemctl
    # ls -l /usr/sbin/reboot lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 16 Oct 23 16:52 /usr/sbin/reboot -> ../bin/systemctl

  • if you look in /lib/systemd/system

    runlevel1.target is a link to rescue.target

    I think the command is

    systemctl isolate rescue.target

    (or runlevel1.target if you prefer)

  • haven’t actually done it but I’m pretty sure you can still add 1 to the grub2 vmlinuz line

    documentation also suggests systemd.unit=rescue.target

  • Or
    On Grub2 Default screen press ‘e’
    Goto ‘linux’ line with arrow keys, then press ‘end’ key to reach end of line, at the end of line
    add space, then write 1 (your runlevel number)
    Press Ctrl +x or F10 to boot

  • Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 13:50:17 -0600

    Do you mean the runlevel? If so, are you sure that you changed it correctly?

    CentOS 7 doesn’t use runlevels set in inittab like previous versions did. I see that fact is actually noted in /etc/inittab, along with the expected way to do it.
    ——————————————————————————————-

  • I have tried some additional changes that have not made a difference.

    I disabled selinux – that made no difference I stopped and disabled firewalld – that made no difference.

    I can boot this machine after I turn it off and then back on, but when I
    try to do a shutdown now -r, the system hangs right after picking the OS
    that is desired “CentOS Linux……….”.

    After the machine is turned off the boot process occurs normally after this choice and I get two penguins in the upper left hand corner, and the boot proceeds. When I do a shutdown now -r, I do not get to the penguins and the machine hangs forever until I either unplug it or press the power button for 5 seconds.

    Any help would be appreciated!!!

    Greg

  • Seems little point in filing a bug report when you have no idea what the issue is. Bugs are not a means of troubleshooting nor a support forum. However, you did get my attention so lets see if we can stimulate some further interest in troubleshooting this.

    So the system will perform a cold reboot, but not a warm reboot. Sounds like a hardware issue to me.

    Any clues in /var/log/messages ?

    Tried updating the BIOS?

    Any hardware firmwares being loaded?

  • I had a computer that did that a few years ago. It would reboot about every third time you started it up, otherwise it would hang.

    Didn’t bother me too much since I rarely rebooted it.

  • I don’t want to hi-jack this but I may have a clew for you. I am troubleshooting a similar problem and have found a trail. I recently installed CentOS7 on my (improperly complicated system) and sometimes it will boot and sometimes not. My problem is apparently caused by having three hard drives . From boot to boot they get mounted in different orders. The drive with my os7  sometimes is mounted as/dev/sda and sometimes /dev/sdc. In grub.cfg on the os7 partition there is a statement “set root=hd0, msdos3” I think that may be the villain but I don’t know where it comes from. (The kernel lines use blockid’s,) That statement is in CentOS7, but not in CentOS6 where I have not had the problem.  I intend to search a while, and maybe learn something or take out a couple of drives.Hopefully this helps.
     

  • Ned,

    Thanks for your response!!!

    Sorry, if posting a bug report was the wrong venue !!!

    There are no messages in the message logs that I could identify as problems, but the system fails before the OS is active.

    I have not updated the BIOS, and do not know how to do this… but this is my testing machine so I am more than open to doing this. I am using a Gateway SX2855-UB12P. I will take a look at the Gateway site; if there are tutorials you could point me to I would appreciate it.

    The only hardware that has been added has been a usb ethernet connection so that I have the motherboard nic card and the usb nic connection. I
    wanted to use this setup to test the firewalld capabilities for a network gateway. The machine does not have a monitor, and is without a mouse or keyboard.

    It should be noted that this machine previously had CentOS 6 with a 3T
    Seagate drive that worked without a problem, but recently developed a disc failure. I replaced the drive with a 4T WesternDigital drive and installed CentOS 7.0 from a DVD.

    Thanks again for your help!!!

    Greg

  • Ned,

    I have printed the bios of this machine below. I reviewed the American Megatrends website, but have not identified whether an upgrade has been created for this bios, or how to install it. This machine was a Windows7 machine originally with a 500G drive, that I removed and replaced with the 3T Seagate drive that failed.

    [root@HmWk ~]# dmidecode -t bios -q BIOS Information
    Vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
    Version: P01-B2
    Release Date: 08/16/2011
    Address: 0xF0000
    Runtime Size: 64 kB
    ROM Size: 4096 kB
    Characteristics:
    PCI is supported
    BIOS is upgradeable
    BIOS shadowing is allowed
    Boot from CD is supported
    Selectable boot is supported
    BIOS ROM is socketed
    EDD is supported
    5.25″/1.2 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
    3.5″/720 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
    3.5″/2.88 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
    Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
    8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
    Serial services are supported (int 14h)
    Printer services are supported (int 17h)
    ACPI is supported
    USB legacy is supported
    BIOS boot specification is supported
    Targeted content distribution is supported
    UEFI is supported
    BIOS Revision: 4.6

    BIOS Language Information
    Language Description Format: Long
    Installable Languages: 1
    en|US|iso8859-1
    Currently Installed Language: en|US|iso8859-1

    Greg

  • You’d have to check the Gateway website to see if a bios update is available to download for your model. Instructions are normally included
    / available.

    Just to eliminate the easy option first, does unplugging the USB
    ethernet adapter (before rebooting) solve the problem?

    I wouldn’t think the drive swap would make a difference.

  • Ned,

    The USB ethernet adapter was a good thought, but removing it did not make a difference. I removed the adapter, rebooted with same failure, then manually turned off system and did a boot with the adapter unplugged, then did another reboot which had the same failure. It does not look like the adapter is the problem.

    I will take another look at the Gateway website. First search attempt did not result in anything productive, that is why I looked at the American Megatrends site which had a bios download tool, but it was for a windows machine. I am going to continue to look, I think my best choice would be to take another look at Gateway site.

    This machine worked perfectly under CentOS 6, I can still use it with CentOS 7, but it is a real pain to reboot.

    Greg