Rocky ISO Install Fails

Hi All,

My aging CentOS 7 MicroServer is now out of support and not able to get any updates. I decided to perform a clean install of Rocky and use that as my OS moving forward. I downloaded the ISO, built a boot USB with dd and set about the task.

All looked fine, and I got the install screen up, tried to “Install Rocky” and it started the process, but shortly after it hangs and my HP MicroServer Gen 8 rebooted itself … and started the whole install over again. It seems to get to different points early on in the install and then just hangs and reboots over and over again. Sometimes I get the red bar at the bottom of the MicroServer flashing, but most times it just hangs and reboots.

Any ideas what the problem might be? I’m installing to a 750Gb SSD from a clean 64GB USB stick. The ISO was checked and seems fine with the checksums.

Cheers,
Ripface

system health issue ie power/fan maybe ? Can you try some other distro just a quick install - I assume you deleted the root partition already so nothing to lose…

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Hi,

Ok, now I’m weirded out. Thought I’d try a different Distro as you helpfully suggested … so downloaded CentOS 9 and tried that. EXACTLY the same symptoms.

I’m installing to a virgin 750Gb Samsung SSD.

Flumoxed!!

Cheers,
Ripface

While on CentOS 7, can you run ‘lspci -nn’ and show us the output?

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I’m sorry, but could it be as simple as this?

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@ripface Did you see my response? Is it the CPU not being supported?

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Hi sspencerwire,

I suspect it may be CPU related. I’ll try booting from a live USB and check out the link you sent. Will let ya know how I get on.

Cheers,
Ripface

Ok, tried to boot the Workstation Lite Live USB and it fails in exactly the same way as the install USB. Guess I’m on a hiding to nowhere. Someone asked for the lspci … output below in case that sheds any light on the problemo!

lspci -nn
lspci -nn
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v2/Ivy Bridge DRAM Controller [8086:0158] (rev 09)
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor PCI Express Root Port [8086:0151] (rev 09)
00:06.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor PCI Express Root Port [8086:015d] (rev 09)
00:1a.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 [8086:1c2d] (rev 05)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 [8086:1c10] (rev b5)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 5 [8086:1c18] (rev b5)
00:1c.6 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 7 [8086:1c1c] (rev b5)
00:1c.7 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 8 [8086:1c1e] (rev b5)
00:1d.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 [8086:1c26] (rev 05)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge [8086:244e] (rev a5)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation C204 Chipset LPC Controller [8086:1c54] (rev 05)
00:1f.2 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family Desktop SATA Controller (IDE mode, ports 0-3) [8086:1c00] (rev 05)
00:1f.5 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family Desktop SATA Controller (IDE mode, ports 4-5) [8086:1c08] (rev 05)
01:00.0 System peripheral [0880]: Hewlett-Packard Company Integrated Lights-Out Standard Slave Instrumentation & System Support [103c:3306] (rev 05)
01:00.2 System peripheral [0880]: Hewlett-Packard Company Integrated Lights-Out Standard Management Processor Support and Messaging [103c:3307] (rev 05)
01:00.4 USB controller [0c03]: Hewlett-Packard Company Integrated Lights-Out Standard Virtual USB Controller [103c:3300] (rev 02)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries NetXtreme BCM5720 2-port Gigabit Ethernet PCIe [14e4:165f]
03:00.1 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries NetXtreme BCM5720 2-port Gigabit Ethernet PCIe [14e4:165f]
04:00.0 USB controller [0c03]: Renesas Technology Corp. uPD720201 USB 3.0 Host Controller [1912:0014] (rev 03)
07:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GK208B [GeForce GT 710] [10de:128b] (rev a1)
07:00.1 Audio device [0403]: NVIDIA Corporation GK208 HDMI/DP Audio Controller [10de:0e0f] (rev a1)

If you cannot follow the guide linked by @sspencerwire, you can try to check the output of the following command:

user@rocky:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep -o '\(cmpxchg16b\|lahf_lm\|popcnt\|sse3\|sse4_[1,2]\)'

If it finds the features within the flags, the cpu should be compatible.
You can refer to Wikpedia to see the list of features present in the specific x86_64 versions.

You need at least x86-64-v2 to install RL9.

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This is what I get from the cpuinfo …

sse3
sse4_1
sse4_2
popcnt
lahf_lm
sse3
sse4_1
sse4_2
popcnt
lahf_lm
sse3
sse4_1
sse4_2
popcnt
lahf_lm
sse3
sse4_1
sse4_2
popcnt
lahf_lm
sse3
sse4_1
sse4_2
popcnt
lahf_lm
sse3
sse4_1
sse4_2
popcnt
lahf_lm
sse3
sse4_1
sse4_2
popcnt
lahf_lm
sse3
sse4_1
sse4_2
popcnt
lahf_lm

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that your cpu is at least x86-64-v2 and therefore should be compatible with RL9.

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Hmmm, guess the issue lies elsewhere then. Never mind, I’ve ordered up a 2nd hand Gen 10 so we’ll see if that works with RL9. Talk about cracking a nut with a sledgehammer …

… maybe should have googled more before ordering the Gen 10. I had hoped to upgrade the CPU on it … but the damn thing appears to be soldered to the MB. WHY!!!

Could you show the

It reveals the device PCI IDs. Some of us can tell from the ID whether Rocky (or ELRepo) has a driver for that device. The installer can load additional drivers and hence cope with hardware that plain Rocky drivers won’t support (reliably or at all).

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You must have missed it, he did post the output of lspci -nn above.

My bad. Looked like wall of text. Use of code tags helps to highlight such outputs.

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It seems from the cpuinfo output that the XEON is supported … but still getting issues installing. Thanks for the suggestion though!

Did you question your method of creating the bootable usb stick? Can you get any other distro to work?

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The bootable USB was created using standard dd on my CentOS 7 box. It boots fine, but the install always fails as described. I have tried RL9 and CentOS 9 and both fail in exactly the same way. I have since built a new USB stick and it also exhibits the same symptoms.

I know it won’t solve your problem, but maybe you could try to live boot RL8 or Ubuntu just to check if the problem is exclusive to RHEL9.

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