Trying to install on qnap TS-439: unraid kernel panic not syncing: vfs: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block

[Tjareson]

Hello,

wanted to try unraid on an QNAP-TS439II+. 

Currently the machine runs Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS with ZFS. 

Unfortunately I don't even get Unraid to boot. It stops with:
unraid kernel panic not syncing: vfs: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block
And yes, I've tried different USB sticks, different versions (6.9.2, 6.9.1) and manual and tool way to setup the USB stick. 
Memory test w/o issues.

 

I also see quite a lot of the same issue outside of this forum on reddit etc. (often in systems running already for a long time) and rarely there was a clear solution to it. 
Any ideas? Not the best start so far where reliability is kind of part of the equation...  

Cheers,
Tjareson

[Squid]

 

[Tjareson]

Ah, ok, thanks. That was the right hint. I was searching for the kernel panic error msg. which misled me a bit. 

I wonder why that parameter is necessary. To start an installation with that kind of hack right away is a bit surprising. 
I'm currently considering to also use unraid on my productive NAS, which is a brand new ts-364. But I'm already facing the next issue in unraid  with loading the apps being stuck with "updating content". I've changed the DNS to google already, but then cannot not see why unraid shouldn't be able to work with the router like any other appliance here.

The ts439 only has 1GB but then if then in htop that doesn't look like an issue, zero swap used so far.... Looks difficult. 
 

 

Edited February 13, 2022 by Tjareson

[Tjareson]

Maybe as add. information... (actually I probably should open a new thread for that)

 

[Squid]

14 minutes ago, Tjareson said:

Maybe as add. information... (actually I probably should open a new thread for that)

 

 You need to post your diagnostics after waiting for a minimum of 120 seconds in that state

[Tjareson]

I found the issue as it looks. It works as long as the parity sync is not running. As soon as I start it, I'm running indeed out of memory if the community app tries to download the app catalog and get just killed by linux lacking memory.

Now, the issue is: I cannot upgrade the RAM, I have already to failed tries in finding a SO-DIMM which is accepted by the board/bios. (2G/4G nothing works)

Anyway, question is, if I can still make use of this otherwise working hardware by somehow enable swap.

Right now I can't do this via the swap plugin: it requires the array to be online to have a space to store the file. If the array is online there is not even enough memory so the swap file can get created and written. The process simply gets killed again before finished. 

 

Any ideas how to still make use of that box with unraid? Background is also that I really wanna test it a bit, before considering switching my productive nas. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be possible to checkout unraid in a vm, at least with a quick shot mapping an USB stick as device into an vmdk...

[itimpi]

How much RAM do you have.   You need at least 4Gb of RAM to run any of the recent releases of Unraid.

[Squid]

How much memory do you have?  4G is the functional minimum.  Anything less and I wouldn't try anything on it other than strictly a file server.

[Tjareson]

This QNAP comes along with 1GB only. Somehow I've got the impression that unraid can also make older hardware useable, where the original vendor gave up on.

But in fact due to the architecture of unraid to keep everything in RAM this doesn't work for all NAS which are limited on RAM, pity. 

I have an ssd in one bay and 3 bays with hdds. Any other system (like ubuntu server) runs w/o problems as they all can make use of a fast swap on the ssd or do not keep everything in RAM to start with.

My production system has 16GB RAM but I can't risk a migration w/o being able to test it before. And also here unraid doesn't allow tests in a vm setup. 😞