On Boot: request_module: runaway loop modprobe binfmt-0000

[isaac_morton]

Hi there,
I've lost the ability to boot a server. It was improperly shut down and I'm afraid I may be rebuilding but would like to save it. During boot up, I get this far:

Mounting root filesystem.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Setting up other filesystems.
Setting up new root fs
no fstab.sys, mounting internal defaults
Switching to new root and running init.
unmounting old /dev
unmounting old /proc
unmounting old /sys
request_module: runaway loop modprobe binfmt-0000
request_module: runaway loop modprobe binfmt-0000
request_module: runaway loop modprobe binfmt-0000
request_module: runaway loop modprobe binfmt-0000
request_module: runaway loop modprobe binfmt-0000

I'm not much of a Linux guy, but I love it, and I'm able to get into rescue mode and see the file system on /mnt/sysimage so I should be able to rebuild this server if necessary. I just am hoping someone has dealt with this before.
I'm running CentOS (2.6.18-398.el5)

Please ask me for any more information you'd like and I'll try to post it.

[TrevorH]

My guess is that you have added something to /etc/modprobe.conf or a file in /etc/modprobe.d that says something like

Code: Select all

install binfmt-0000 /sbin/modprobe  binfmt-0000

This sort of thing would cause it to loop since it says that when you try to load binfmt-0000 then it should run modprobe binfmt-0000 which then repeats itself until it runs out of memory. Track down where the error is in those files, modify them to fix it then you probably have to rebuld the initrd to include the change in there too. You can find instructions for doing something similar in the wiki article http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/CreateNewInitrd