TL;DR: Upgraded server hardware due to power failure and new server will not boot into Unraid.

 

Problem: Upgraded server hardware from Dell Poweredge R710 to a Dell Poweredge R910 when attempting to boot from USB i get an error message; Failed to Allocate memory for Kernel command line, bailing out booting kernel failed: bad file number.

 

 

I recently had a power failure which rendered my Dell Poweredge R710 inoperable, as a result i was able to obtain a replacement for it. The replacement device is a Dell Poweredge R910.

 

The configuration is:

• 4 x Intel Xenon E7-4850 (10 Core/ 20 thread)
• 64GB DDR3 ECC Registered Memory
• Perc H700 Raid controller
• iDRAC 6 Enterprise

 

I have validated that BIOS is up to date according to https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/product/poweredge-r910/drivers

 

I have verified that the hardware is recognized in the BIOS and posts without issue, the problem comes when i attempt to boot from the Unraid USB in UEFI mode, when i attempt to boot in legacy mode it never gets to the splash screen (GRUB Loader) to boot Unraid. Seeing that there were several people with similar issues i looked for resolution and was unable to find one:

 

 

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/66286-failed-to-allocate-memory-for-kernel-command-line-bailing-out-booting-kernel-failed-bad-file-number/

https://forum.level1techs.com/t/failed-to-allocate-memory-for-kernel-command-line-bailing-out-booting-kernel-failed-bad-file-number-unraid-6-6-7/140482/11

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1047343-failed-to-allocate-memory-for-kernel-command-line-bailing-out-booting-kernel-failed-bad-file-number-unraid-667/?tab=comments#comment-12418630

 

After reading the updates in the posts above it appears that there may be 2 potential causes of the issue with booting to the Unraid USB.

1. there is an issue with the GRUB boot-loader not being able to communicate with the onboard memory to load the OS.
   1. I was able to boot a multi-boot USB into Ubuntu from a GRUB boot menu, Ubuntu loads and sees all memory and CPU cores and threads.
2. There is an issue with the allocation of memory as video memory in the BIOS/ UEFI that causes the failure of the booting of Syslinux.
   1. I am unable to change the allocation of system memory in the BIOS, it currently shows 8MB and does not allow for editing.

 

As a side note i have attempted to boot the USB in legacy mode as a drive, hard disk, and floppy none of which have solved the issue. I have also built a new flash-drive with the utility found at https://unraid.net/download using the latest stable release both with and without UEFI support. I have also tried the internal and external USB (front/ back) and all give the same results.

 

I am unsure how to resolve this issue any assistance is greatly appreciated, I am unsure what would allow the R710 to boot in both UEFI and legacy without issue whereas the R910 is having issues.

 

Bump

 

The issue is still going on, i have a theory that if i upgrade the Unraid USB from Grub to Grub2 it might solve the issue. Any thoughts anyone know how i can go about doing this? I am familiar tho still a novice with Linux and Bash. However i don't think that this would be that complicated a task.

 

I have just tested both drives that i had on another computer and they both booted without issue in BIOS and UEFI. So i know it is not an issue with the drives and as stated above i am able to boot from a Live Ubuntu USB and that works fine. I believe that USB was using the YUMI Multiboot based on Grub2.

41 minutes ago, IrishFavor said:

if i upgrade the Unraid USB from Grub to Grub2 it might solve the issue

Unraid doesn't use Grub.

@jonathanm Oh i guess that is my mistake what does it use for the boot loader when booting the the unraid splash screen it just looked alot like my other bootable distro's that use grub. Any ideas on something else i can try? 

UnRAID uses syslinux as its boot loader

I second this issue with Dell R810, tried every USB port, every possible combination of the configuration, tried to disable integrated perc and use adapter perc in IT mode, tried uefi and bios both on stable and next editions of Unraid. Nothing helps.

 

My hypothesis is that this has something to do with the way Dell R's configure memmory array before boot.

 

The question is will Unraid solve this soon, by soon I mean yesterday! Or we all need to trash our enterprise grade hardware and rush out to buy consumer grade? Or just be forced to run XCP-ng or Proxmox for home labs and have nightmares passing through certain hardware using those solutions? 

On 9/12/2020 at 3:47 AM, UnVOID said:

Or we all need to trash our enterprise grade hardware and rush out to buy consumer grade

I would do it. Your CPUs have a really low single thread rating:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E7-+4850+%40+2.00GHz&id=2077&cpuCount=4

 

So even if this server would work, it won't make fun to use. And I don't want to know how much energy this hardware consumes.

 

As this kernel error seems to be a general issue with old Dell Poweredge servers I would gave up. Sometimes new(er) hardware is the better option.

Well this is depressing, I have an R810 and am having this issue as well.  Pity.  I guess time to scrap the system.

Update - I got it to work!

The issue is old Bios.  I was able to boot into unraid and it is stable after updating bios to 2.11.0.

 

This was accomplished by following this guide - 

 

Please note the comment: Reference the "command not found" error, I was having an issue with the files having permission to execute from the USB drive itself. I copied and pasted the BIN files in question into the Home folder, accessed properties and selected allowed to executing as a program. then accessed the folder via command line again with the "sudo ./" command and it worked. just adding what worked for me here.