[Bug 1410604] Re: ISST-LTE: unable to open rtc device

[Martin Pitt]

Thanks for the journal. This shows that the error message happens way
earlier than userspace/pid 1 starts. So it's either the kernel itself,
or the initramfs. I can indeed see this error message in our ppc64el
scalingstack instances as well.

So I went through the initramfs-tools hooks and scripts and found
/usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/local-premount/fixrtc, which indeed
does call "hwclock -s || true" (-s == --hctosys). However, while that's
promising that isn't it: That code only runs if "fixrtc" is on the
command line, which it isn't (at least for me). Adding a set -x there
also shows that it runs after the error message:

[    0.625781] evm: HMAC attrs: 0x1
[    0.625920] hctosys: unable to open rtc device (rtc0)
[    0.626595] Freeing unused kernel memory: 6144K (c000000000e80000 - c000000001480000)
Loading, please wait...
starting version 229
[    0.637968] random: udevadm urandom read with 1 bits of entropy available
Begin: Loading essential drivers ... done.
Begin: Running /scripts/init-premount ... done.
Begin: Mounting root file system ... Begin: Running /scripts/local-top ... done.
Begin: Running /scripts/local-premount ... + PREREQ=
+ BROKEN_CLOCK=
+ ROOTDEV=
+ SYSTEMPART=
+ cat /proc/cmdline
+ value=UUID=9f6cb10b-904a-4b22-b9e1-80455f176cc2
+ ROOTDEV=/dev/disk/by-uuid/9f6cb10b-904a-4b22-b9e1-80455f176cc2
+ [ -z /dev/disk/by-uuid/9f6cb10b-904a-4b22-b9e1-80455f176cc2 -a -n  ]
+ [ -n  -a -n /dev/disk/by-uuid/9f6cb10b-904a-4b22-b9e1-80455f176cc2 ]
+ exit 0
done.
Warning: fsck not present, so skipping root file system
[    2.608767] EXT4-fs (vda1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
done.
Begin: Running /scripts/local-bottom ... done.
Begin: Running /scripts/init-bottom ... done.
[    2.657889] systemd[1]: systemd 229 running in system mode. (+PAM +AUDIT +SELINUX +IMA +APPARMOR +SMACK +SYSVINIT +UTMP +LIBCRYPTSET
UP +GCRYPT +GNUTLS +ACL +XZ -LZ4 +SECCOMP +BLKID +ELFUTILS +KMOD -IDN)


** Package changed: util-linux (Ubuntu) => initramfs-tools (Ubuntu)

** Changed in: initramfs-tools (Ubuntu)
       Status: Incomplete => Triaged

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1410604

Title:
  ISST-LTE: unable to open rtc device

Status in initramfs-tools package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  == Comment: #0 - Chanh H. Nguyen <chnguyen at us.ibm.com> - 2015-01-09 17:30:08 ==
  We use DVD to install Ubuntu 15.04 kernel 3.18.0-8-generic version on our PowerVM system. After install, I am seeing this error "/build/buildd/linux-3.18.0/drivers/rtc/hctosys.c: unable to open rtc device" on the dmesg log...

  root at pole1lp3:~# uname -a
  Linux pole1lp3 3.18.0-8-generic #9-Ubuntu SMP Mon Jan 5 22:52:15 UTC 2015 ppc64le ppc64le ppc64le GNU/Linux
  root at pole1lp3:~# dmesg |grep rtc
  [    0.556763] /build/buildd/linux-3.18.0/drivers/rtc/hctosys.c: unable to open rtc device (rtc0)
  [    3.296241] rtc-generic rtc-generic: rtc core: registered rtc-generic as rtc0
  root at pole1lp3:~#

  == Comment: #2 - David Heller <hellerda at us.ibm.com> - 2015-01-13 20:53:50 ==
  It must be an order of operations thing: something is trying to do the hctosys before the driver is loaded. A few seconds later the driver loads and it seems fine after that.

  root at pole1lp3:~# dmesg | grep rtc
  [    0.551202] /build/buildd/linux-3.18.0/drivers/rtc/hctosys.c: unable to open rtc device (rtc0)
  [    3.353719] rtc-generic rtc-generic: rtc core: registered rtc-generic as rtc0

  root at pole1lp3:~# find /dev -name \*rtc\*
  /dev/rtc
  /dev/rtc0

  root at pole1lp3:~# hwclock
  Tue 13 Jan 2015 07:36:15 PM CST  -0.779773 seconds

  root at pole1lp3:~# hwclock --hctosys

  root at pole1lp3:~# date
  Tue Jan 13 19:38:05 CST 2015

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