VMware Communities: Message List - Converted Solaris image panics "cannot mount root path"

Re: Converted Solaris image panics "cannot mount root path"

ebonick — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:26:13 GMT

I have a similar issue where after a short while the vm will go into a reboot loop but will boot into failsafe fine. I tried all of the above steps, but nothing helped. I do a see W real quick before the vm reboots. I have never used Solaris before and am in charge of keeping this vm running, but the reboot loop is stunmping me. Anyone have any suggestions?

Re: Converted Solaris image panics "cannot mount root path"

MPowerLabs — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 21:57:04 GMT

The above posts where very helpful. This is what I ended up doing when I had a similar problem after updating ESX from 3.0 to 3.5:

boot to failsafe
add swap space --- swap -a /dev/dsk/cxtxdxsx
cp /etc/path_to_inst /a/etc/path_to_inst
edit /a/boot/solaris/bootenv.rc with the proper boot device
rm /a/etc/devices/*
rm /a/dev/rdsk/c*
rm /a/dev/dsk/c*
rm /a/dev/cfg/c*
devfsadm -v -r /a
reboot /w -arvs

If the reboot fails, go back and check bootenv.rc. I had a problem with the file reverting back to the original boot device.

Re: Converted Solaris image panics "cannot mount root path"

acruizu — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:44:28 GMT

Thank you very much. Your post was very helpfull.

Re: Converted Solaris image panics "cannot mount root path"

publish_or_perish — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:52:29 GMT

That was an extremely helpful starting point. Though most of it was relevant, the instructions
didn't work for me migrating my Solaris 10 Update 4 (w/Trusted Extension) IDE-based VM from
Fusion 1.1.1 to ESX 3.5. It took quite bit of research experimentation to figure make it work.

The following are a combination of your recommendations, along with the changes & clarifications
I added to get it to work for my VM migration from Fusion to ESX.

Re: Converted Solaris image panics "cannot mount root path"

tom.elder — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 13:46:17 GMT

step 10) should read /a/etc/vfstab

but thanks for figuring the rest out; very helpful

Tom

Re: Converted Solaris image panics "cannot mount root path"

radman — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 19:12:54 GMT

I figured this out. Much searching locally and across the internet turned up little info but with what I found and some experimentation I found this to work for migrating a Solaris 10 Update 3 IDE-based VM to ESX, so am posting it so others don't have to go through the same pain I did (maybe a KB article would be appropriate?).

1) Run VMware Converter
2) Boot the Failsafe Kernel under ESX
3) Allow it to mount the root disk (under /a, the default)
4) Run "mount" and note the /devices/... path used for the root disk.
In my case this was /devices/pci@0,0/pci1000,30@10/sd@0,0:a
I don't know if this will vary, it may always be this path after Converter runs.
I'll use XXX to represent your pathname after /devices/ below just in case
(e.g. XXX=/pci@0,0/pci1000,30@10/sd@0,0:a in my case)
5) TERM=sun-color; export TERM
This will make using vi easier.
6) vi /a/boot/solaris/bootenv.rc
update property "bootpath" (from above):
setprop bootpath XXX
in my case it was:
setprop bootpath /pci@0,0/pci1000,30@10/sd@0,0:a
7) cp /etc/path_to_inst /a/etc/path_to_inst
8) rm /a/etc/devices/*
9) update bootarchive:
bootadm update-archive -R /a
10) Edit /etc/vfstab
Find the line for your root disk. Replace the /dev/dsk/??? path with /devices/XXX, and replace the /dev/rdsk/??? path with /devices/XXX,raw (e.g. /devices/pci@0,0/pci1000,30@10/sd@0,0:a,raw)
This is necessary because before device reconfiguration occurs the kernel will try to see if the / filesystem needs checking, by reading /etc/vfstab, but until reconfiguration occurs there is no /dev entry for the / filesystem. So you need to use the absolute /devices path until reconfiguration can be performed and a /dev alias path is created.
11) Reboot
12) At the Grub screen where you choose the kernel you want, select the normal kernel, but press 'e' to edit it.
13) Move down to the 2nd (kernel) line, and type 'e' to edit it
Append "-r -s" to force device reconfiguration and boot single-user, then press Return
to return to the previous screen
14) Type 'b' to boot this temporarily-modified configuration
15) When you enter single-user, do an ls -l /dev/dsk to find the c?txdxsx disk that corresponds to the /devices path you are using. It's probably c2t0d0s0
16) Touch up /etc/vfstab to use the /dev/* paths which correspond to your disk (don't forget to update the swap entry as well, using the same txdxsx with the correct c? value for your disk).
17) Type ^D to go to multi-user

Done! Be careful typing those long /devices path names!

Converted Solaris image panics "cannot mount root path"

radman — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 23:16:55 GMT

I'm migrating some machines from VMware Server to ESX. I converted a Solaris 10 machine that had an IDE disk, using Converter.

The failsafe kernel boots fine. But, when I try to boot the real kernel, it immediately panics with "cannot mount root path". I took a look (under the failsafe kernel) at the vfstab, and it looked funky (the / device name was something like /dev/dsk/c1td1s0), so I changed it to match the name mounted for root under the failsafe kernel: /dev/dsk/c1t0d0s0, and even rebuilt the boot archive, but the same panic recurs. I also tried booting with -r, but that didn't help either.

There was some kind of message during the conversion saying that the image couldn't be customized I think but I didn't write it down I'm afraid. It said it completed successfully.

Anybody have any idea what might be going wrong here? The Hard Disk is "SCSI(0:0) Hard Disk 1" according to Settings. Could the device naming be different between the failsafe and regular kernels?

It's panicing when vfs_mountroot calls rootconf.

Any tips much appreciated!