[PARTIAL SUCCESS] Debugging/fixing a kernel stalled not crashing

[tlaronde%polynum.com@localhost]

Le Thu, Aug 18, 2022 at 04:33:04PM +0200, tlaronde%polynum.com@localhost a écrit :
> Context: I rent a baremetal server and try to install NetBSD on it. I
> finally installed a Linux (Debian) and installed NetBSD as a dual boot.
> But NetBSD doesn't come up (in case there was a
> network misconfiguration, I verified that no log, no dmesg was written)
> and neither does it crashes and reboots (because I use GRUB2 boot once
> feature and, if it was the case, the server will go back to Debian, and
> it doesn't).
> 

So:

- I have installed a Linux/Debian and I'm using GRUB2 to chainload
the stage1 block in order to load the NetBSD kernel, using the booting
once feature of GRUB2 so that if something goes wrong, I can go back
to the Linux/Debian;

- I have set (since I can see nothing of the boot process) a /boot.cfg
with several choices, and set the default in order from the chainloading
done by GRUB2 to try various things (since I haven't found the
possibility to mount ffs rw under Linux, I use qemu-system-x86_64,
under Debian, to write and modify the NetBSD partitions);

- The machine is an Intel Xeon, quadcore, IvyBridge. Since the GENERIC
kernel does not boot, I have compiled a custom 9.3, stripping all
unneeded, and adding this feature (commented out in the GENERIC config):

acpismbus*	at acpi?		# ACPI SMBus CMI (experimental)

since from x86/pci/imcsmb/imc.c, there are some pecularities about
the (Sandy,Ivy)bridge with the Xeon.

Disabling the framebuffer (i915drmkms) via userconf, and disabling the
SMP, NetBSD boots on the machine. The dmesg is here:

http://downloads.kergis.com/misc/rpt_netbsd9.3_monocore_no-fb.dmesg

Since I fought quite a lot with Debian, GRUB2 and so on for the 
installation and the boot process, I have to verify if an SMP version
of the same does boot or not.

If an SMP does not boot, I will go back to the list to have tips about
how I can best gain informations about what's going wrong in order to
try to fix or help to fix it.
-- 
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                     http://www.kergis.com/
                    http://kertex.kergis.com/
                       http://www.sbfa.fr/
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