I compiled the kernel 2.6.9 on enterprise linux 4. I wished to eneble SMP support on it. So I enebled it and compiled the kernel.

I did following things:

1. copied bzImage from /usr/src/linux-2.6.9/arch/i386/boot to /boot

and modified the /etc/grub.conf file as

title Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS
root (hd0,0)
kernel /bzImage ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.9-5.ELsmp.img

When i reboot the kernel it is giving following error:

Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init !

I would appreciate if anybody could help me to come out of this problem.

Thanks & Regards,
Sharad.

Two things immediately strike me about this:

1. That is an old kernel.
Why don't you try compiling a much more recent kernel?

2. "enterprise linux 4" is not a distribution.
Could it be that you mean "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4". There is an smp kernel for this distribution - why don't you use that?

Basically, the kernel panic means you left something out. Go back and do it again, slowly. Did you remember to create the initrd?

Kernel panic occurs when you left something that was not supposed to be left, or chose options that don't work. All you have to do is... ahem... compile correctly

PS: This may take time but once you do it successfully, you will remember it

The immediate message that you quoted simply means: What you are looking for, actually, is the reason why it died, which will be found in messages before this one.

(Incidentally, init, or "process #1," is the program that starts and restarts everything in the system, cleans up after the corpses, and so-on. It is started when the system first boots up and it never dies. (As you saw, if it does die, the system immediately halts.)

Fall-back to the previous kernel and try the installation again.

I guess it can be that you didn´t make initrd file with the mkinitrd command.

The kernel startup init kernel thread ( process PID 1 ) cannot locate the init program on your root filesystem. The init kernel thread execs the init program to continue the startup procedure. The init program runs as PID 1 and replaces the init kernel thread.

You need to check that your rootfs contains the init program. eg. /sbin/init

It may be that the mounting of your root filesystem failed and therefore the kernel was unable to access the init program.

How did you make the initial ramdisk? I needs to match the kernel. But you say "copied bzImage from /usr/src/linux-2.6.9/arch/i386/boot to /boot"
so the kernel would be would be /boot/bzImage in your case, but you specify /bzImage in the grub.conf.

If Enterprise means Redhat Enterprise, you might be better off installing their ready-made SMP kernel from RPMs because RH makes it somewhat hard to get compiling the kernel right unless you know exactly what you are doing.

Hope it helps,
mlp

RHEL installer creates a boot partition by default. All the entries in grub.conf are relative to the /boot. So the reference should be OK. (Mind you, it's been a while since I used anything redhat.)You can say that again!

If this was a recompile of the installed distro-kernel, then it is possible to keep all the original settings and only enable [m] for smb. Somehow I suspect this is not what happened.

Now, I suspect, no headway will be gained until OP replies... er... hello sharad?