Boot fails on Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machine with message: mount: unknown filesystem swap on RSA Authentication Manager 8.1, 8.2, 8.3

[#1]

Article Number

000030722

Applies To

RSA Product Set:  SecurID
RSA Product/Service Type:  Authentication Manager
RSA Version/Condition:  8.1, 8.2, 8.3
Platform:  Microsoft Hyper-V

Issue

The RSA Authentication Manager 8.x Hyper-V virtual server boot fails with the following error:
 

doing fast boot
Creating device nodes with udev mount: devpts already mounted or /dev/pts busy
mount: according to mtab, devpts is already mounted on /dev/pts
Boot logging started on /dev/tty1(/dev/console) at Fri Jun 12 09:23:36 2015
Waiting for device /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36002248000000000000000000000000-part1 to appear: ok
fsck from util-linux 2.19.1
fsck: fsck.swap: not found
fsck: Error 2 while executing fsck.swap for /dev/sdb1 fsck failed.
Mounting root device read-only. 
Mounting root /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36002248000000000000000000000000-part1
mount -o ro,defaults -t swap /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-36002248000000000000000000000000-part1 /root 
mount: unknown filesystem type 'swap' could not mount root file system -- exiting to /bin/sh 
$

 

Cause

The udev rules on Linux Hyper-V virtual machines cause these errors when the disk pointers are not set correctly.  The kernel tries to mount the swap partition /dev/sdb1 as the root file system rather than using /dev/sda1.

Resolution

Resolve this error by modifying the boot files using the main device files, not the udev by-id pointers. This can be done by running the steps below:

1. On the single user shell, run the commands below to edit /etc/fstab:

mount -o rw, remount /
vim /etc/fstab

2. Delete the parts of the fstab that look like what is in bold below (that is, /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-14d5346542020202000000000000000000000000000000000-part1😞

...
tmpfs   /run              tmpfs   noauto          0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-14d5346542020202000000000000000000000000000000000-part1 / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/sdb1 swap    swap    defaults        0 0

3. Replace the text removed in step 2 with the text in bold below (that is, /dev/sda1):

...
tmpfs   /run              tmpfs   noauto          0 0
/dev/sda1 / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/sdb1 swap    swap    defaults        0 0

4. Press Esc then :wq! to save changes.
5. Run the following command to edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst:

vim /boot/grub/menu.lst

6. Delete the parts of the menu.lst that look like the bold text below (for example, /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-14d5346542020202000000000000000000000000000000000-part1 and /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-14d5346542020202000000000000000000000000000000000😞

title Start_RSA_Authentication_Manager_[_VMX_]
 kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.93-0.5-default 
root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-14d5346542020202000000000000000000000000000000000-part1 
disk=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-14d5346542020202000000000000000000000000000000000  vga=0x314 splash=verbose   
quiet showopts
 initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd-3.0.93-0.5-default
title Failsafe_Mode_[_VMX_]
 kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.93-0.5-default 
root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-14d5346542020202000000000000000000000000000000000-part1 
disk=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-14d5346542020202000000000000000000000000000000000  vga=0x314 splash=verbose   
ide=nodma apm=off noresume edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processsor.max+cstate=1 
nomodeset x11failsafe quiet showopts
 initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd-3.0.93-0.5-default

7. Replace the text removed in step 6 with the text in bold below (for example, /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda😞

title Start_RSA_Authentication_Manager_[_VMX_]
 kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.93-0.5-default root=/dev/sda1 disk=/dev/sda  
vga=0x314 splash=verbose   quiet showopts
 initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd-3.0.93-0.5-default
title Failsafe_Mode_[_VMX_]
 kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.93-0.5-default root=/dev/sda1 disk=/dev/sda  
vga=0x314 splash=verbose   ide=nodma apm=off noresume edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off 
processsor.max+cstate=1 nomodeset x11failsafe quiet showopts
 initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd-3.0.93-0.5-default

8. Press Esc then :wq! to save the changes.
9. Reboot the server:

reboot

10. After reboot, the virtual server should boot successfully.

Notes

Screenshot of error messages:
 

Image description