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Booting RHEL into single mode hangs

$ SOLUTION VERIFIED - Updated May 6 2016 at 12:03 AM - English ()

Environment
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

Issue
We are unable to boot, with the latest kernel available on the system (2.6.32-
220.17.1.el6.x86_64), into single user mode (by adding the single option in the kernel
command line in GRUB menu). The system appears to hang after
" enabling /etc/fstab swaps: [OK] " message is displayed. Booting with an older kernel
(2.6.32-220.el6.x86_64) or in multi-user mode does not have any problems.

Resolution
Remove the following options from the kernel command line:

console=ttyS1,115200

Root Cause
In reality, the system really wasn't hanging, but it was directing console I/O to somewhere other than
the console in use. So everything just looked like it had stopped.

Diagnostic Steps
The working kernel command line (from /boot/grub/grub.conf ) was:

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kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.32-220.el6.x86_64 ro root=/dev/mapper/sysvg-root rd_NO_LUKS
KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us LANG=en_US.UTF-8 rd_LVM_LV=sysvg/swap rd_NO_MD quiet
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SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 rhgb crashkernel=auto rd_LVM_LV=sysvg/root rd_NO_DM

and the non-working command line was:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.32-220.17.1.el6.x86_64 ro root=/dev/mapper/sysvg-root rd_NO_LUKS

KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us LANG=en_US.UTF-8 rd_LVM_LV=sysvg/swap rd_NO_MD quiet
SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 crashkernel=auto rd_LVM_LV=sysvg/root rd_NO_DM
console=tty1 console=ttyS1,115200 acpi_dbg_layer=65535 acpi_dbg_level=65535

Removing the last line, to make the "non-working" command line more like the "working" command
line, resolved the problem. Further experimentation determined that it was the
" console=ttyS1,115200 " option that was causing the problem.

Product(s) Red Hat Enterprise Linux (/taxonomy/products/red-hat-enterprise-linux)

Component initscripts (/components/initscripts) kernel (/components/kernel)

Category Troubleshoot (/category/troubleshoot)

Tags bootloader (/tags/bootloader) hang (/tags/hang)

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