How to solve Kernel panic - not syncing - Attempted to kill init -- without erasing any user data

Question

I was trying to update libc in our Ubuntu server but it failed and now when I reboot the server I get a error message      Kernel panic - not syncing - Attempted to kill init    and it just hangs    What is the solution to this problem  The server is used by 10 people so I don t want to reinstall erasing their data

User · Answer

Booting from CD to rescue the installation and editing /etc/selinux/config: changed SELINUX from enforcing to permissive. Rebooted and system booted

/etc/selinux/config before change:

SELINUX=enforcing and SELINUXTYPE=permissive

/etc/selinux/config after change: SELINUX=permissive and SELINUXTYPE=permissive

User · Answer

I just came across this problem when I replaced a failing disk   I had copied over the system files to the new disk  and was good about replacing the old disk s UUID entry with the new disk s UUID in fstab   However I had not replaced the UUID in the grub conf  sometimes menu lst  file in  boot grub   So check your grub conf file  and if the  kernel  line has something like   kernel     root UUID 906eaa97-f66a-4d39-a39d-5091c7095987    it likely has the old disk s UUID    Replace it with the new disk s UUID and run grub-install  if you re in a live CD rescue you may need to chroot or specify the grub directory

User · Answer

At grub screen goto boot in recovery    As booting hold ESC  It should take you into a gui menu  Open command and fix selinux    Also I suggest run the clean broken packages

User · Answer

Solution is  -    Restart Go to advanced menu and then click on  e  edit the boot parameters  Go down to the line which starts with linux and press End Press space Add the following at the end -   kernel panic 1 Press F10 to restart   This basically forces your PC to restart because by default it does not restart after a kernel panic

User · Answer

Mount the centos live cd and boot  Go into rescue mode and wait for it load up Read the terminal to see where it mounted the OS Go into OS vim or nano  etc selinux config Make sure SELINUX enforcing or disabled

User · Answer

Mount remount the   Eg    mount -o remount rw  dev xyz   sed -i  s 1 1 0 0    etc fstab sed -i  s 1 2 0 0    etc fstab reboot

User · Answer

if the full message is   kernel panic - not syncing  Attempted to kill inint   PId  1  comm  init not tainted 2 6 32 -279-5 2 e16 x86 64  1   then you should have disabled selinux and after that you have rebooted the system   The easier way is to use a live OS and re-enable it  vim  etc selinux config             SELINUX enforcing           Second choice is to disable selinux in the kernel arguments by adding selinux 0  vim  boot grub grub conf             kernel  boot vmlinuz-2 4 20-selinux-2003040709 ro root  dev hda1 nousb selinux 0           source kernel panic - not syncing  Attempted to kill inint

User · Answer

Use Rescue mode with cd and mount the filesystem  Try to check if any binary files or folder are deleted  If deleted you will have to manually install the rpms to get those files back    https   askubuntu com questions 92946 cannot-boot-because-kernel-panic-not-syncing-attempted-to-kill-init

[security] How to solve "Kernel panic - not syncing - Attempted to kill init" -- without erasing any user data

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