[Bug 808611] New: Very slow loading of initrd

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=808611 https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=808611#c0 Summary: Very slow loading of initrd Classification: openSUSE Product: openSUSE 12.3 Version: Final Platform: Other OS/Version: Other Status: NEW Severity: Normal Priority: P5 - None Component: Bootloader AssignedTo: jsrain@suse.com ReportedBy: joschibrauchle@gmx.de QAContact: jsrain@suse.com Found By: --- Blocker: --- User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.22 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/25.0.1364.160 Safari/537.22 This bugreport is a followup to this thread on the opensuse-factory mailing list: http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2013-03/msg00162.html With openSUSE 12.3, loading of the initrd via grub legacy from harddisk **sometimes is extremely slow**, e.g. on a very recent Core-i7 system it takes ~10 seconds, on an older Core2Duo up to 30-60 seconds! These times are **only for loading** the initrd, not booting the system! During these 10-60 seconds, the HDD led of the machines are constantly on/flashing. The problem exists even with the "stock" kernel and initrd from the oss repo under /boot/x86_64/loader, if I copy then to the boot partition and add them to grub. This is our disk layout: --------- # fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x000ec0fc Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 2048 305151 151552 83 Linux /dev/sda2 305152 17092607 8393728 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda3 17092608 976773119 479840256 8e Linux LVM --------- The /boot partition is ext4. Currently there is no further output except the grub screen showing ------ root (hd0,0) kernel ... initrd ... ------ I can **sometimes, not 100%** create slow and fast loading initrd's (with grub) on my machine using this procedure: 1. Slow loading initrd by re-installing kernel: # zypper in -f kernel-desktop ...<cut> (1/1) Installing: kernel-desktop-3.7.10-1.1.1 .........................................................................................................[done] Additional rpm output: Kernel image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.7.10-1.1-desktop Initrd image: /boot/initrd-3.7.10-1.1-desktop Root device: /dev/system/slash (mounted on / as ext4) /usr device: /dev/system/usr (mounted on /usr as ext4) Resume device: /dev/sda2 Kernel Modules: thermal_sys thermal processor fan dm-mod dm-snapshot scsi_dh scsi_dh_alua scsi_dh_rdac scsi_dh_emc scsi_dh_hp_sw xhci-hcd hid-logitech-dj linear Features: acpi dm plymouth block usb lvm2 resume.userspace resume.kernel --> Result: Slow boot with 10+ seconds delay at loading initrd # filefrag -v /boot/initrd-3.7.10-1.1-desktop Filesystem type is: ef53 File size of /boot/initrd-3.7.10-1.1-desktop is 32689465 (31924 blocks, blocksize 1024) ext logical physical expected length flags 0 0 43009 6144 1 6144 55297 49153 2048 2 8192 63489 57345 2048 3 10240 69633 65537 4096 4 14336 75777 73729 17588 eof /boot/initrd-3.7.10-1.1-desktop: 5 extents found 2. Fast loading initrd, just run: # mkinitrd Kernel image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.7.10-1.1-desktop Initrd image: /boot/initrd-3.7.10-1.1-desktop Root device: /dev/system/slash (mounted on / as ext4) /usr device: /dev/system/usr (mounted on /usr as ext4) Resume device: /dev/sda2 Kernel Modules: thermal_sys thermal processor fan dm-mod dm-snapshot scsi_dh scsi_dh_alua scsi_dh_rdac scsi_dh_emc scsi_dh_hp_sw xhci-hcd hid-logitech-dj linear Features: acpi dm plymouth block usb lvm2 resume.userspace resume.kernel --> Result: Fast boot with no delay! I unpacked both initrd's (into dirs "zypper" and "mkinitrd"): --------------- # diff -wuir zypper/ mkinitrd/ Only in zypper/bin: cat Only in zypper/bin: chmod Only in zypper/bin: cp Only in zypper/bin: date Only in zypper/bin: dmesg Only in zypper/bin: ls Only in zypper/bin: mkdir Only in zypper/bin: mknod Only in zypper/bin: mount Only in zypper/bin: mv Only in zypper/bin: rm Only in zypper/bin: sed Only in zypper/bin: sleep Only in zypper/bin: umount Only in zypper/bin: uname diff -wuir zypper/etc/adjtime mkinitrd/etc/adjtime --- zypper/etc/adjtime 2013-03-04 20:00:08.125172787 +0100 +++ mkinitrd/etc/adjtime 2013-03-04 20:04:38.492049355 +0100 @@ -1,3 +1,3 @@ --0.236439 1362423098 0.000000 -1362423098 +-0.236439 1362423464 0.000000 +1362423464 UTC diff -wuir zypper/mkinitrd.config mkinitrd/mkinitrd.config --- zypper/mkinitrd.config 2013-03-04 20:00:07.609173198 +0100 +++ mkinitrd/mkinitrd.config 2013-03-04 20:04:38.178049423 +0100 @@ -1 +1 @@ --k /boot/vmlinuz-3.7.10-1.1-desktop -i /boot/initrd-3.7.10-1.1-desktop + Question: Why are there different files in the initrd created by zypper and by mkinitrd? Reproducible: Sometimes Steps to Reproduce: 1. "zypper in -f kernel-desktop" -> initrd takes 10+ seconds to load on boot 2. "mkinitrd" -> initrd loads immediately on boot -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.