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authorPaulo Alcantara <pc@manguebit.org>2026-09-26 19:20:30 -0300
committerPaulo Alcantara <pc@manguebit.org>2026-09-30 14:24:12 -0300
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netfs: zero the tail of a short DIO/unbuffered readgrafted
The buffered read collector zero-fills the tail of a short read that stops below the inode's i_size (netfs_clear_unread()), so a read that races an extending write still returns the expected number of bytes. The non-buffered collector path does no such thing: it just records how much was transferred. Add the same zero-fill for the non-buffered case, gated on NETFS_SREQ_CLEAR_TAIL: a subreq's source sets that flag when a short result from it is known to be safe to treat as a hole, as opposed to NETFS_SREQ_HIT_EOF, which means the read genuinely ran off the end of the file and should be reported short as-is. Only CLEAR_TAIL should zero-fill here; a real EOF must stay a real short read. No source currently sets CLEAR_TAIL on an unbuffered/DIO subrequest, so this is inert on its own -- a following change teaches cifs to set it in the one case that needs it. Fixes: e2d46f2ec332 ("netfs: Change the read result collector to only use one work item") Reviewed-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Namjae Jeon <linkinjeon@kernel.org> Signed-off-by: Paulo Alcantara <pc@manguebit.org> Cc: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org> Cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org> Cc: Ronnie Sahlberg <ronniesahlberg@gmail.com> Cc: Shyam Prasad N <sprasad@microsoft.com> Cc: Tom Talpey <tom@talpey.com> Cc: Bharath SM <bharathsm@microsoft.com> Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
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+Explaining the "No working init found." boot hang message
+=========================================================
+:Authors: Andreas Mohr <andi at lisas period de>
+ Cristian Souza <cristianmsbr at gmail period com>
+
+This document provides some high-level reasons for failure
+(listed roughly in order of execution) to load the init binary.
+
+1) **Unable to mount root FS**: Set "debug" kernel parameter (in bootloader
+ config file or CONFIG_CMDLINE) to get more detailed kernel messages.
+
+2) **init binary doesn't exist on rootfs**: Make sure you have the correct
+ root FS type (and ``root=`` kernel parameter points to the correct
+ partition), required drivers such as storage hardware (such as SCSI or
+ USB!) and filesystem (ext3, jffs2, etc.) are builtin (alternatively as
+ modules, to be pre-loaded by an initrd).
+
+3) **Broken console device**: Possibly a conflict in ``console= setup``
+ --> initial console unavailable. E.g. some serial consoles are unreliable
+ due to serial IRQ issues (e.g. missing interrupt-based configuration).
+ Try using a different ``console= device`` or e.g. ``netconsole=``.
+
+4) **Binary exists but dependencies not available**: E.g. required library
+ dependencies of the init binary such as ``/lib/ld-linux.so.2`` missing or
+ broken. Use ``readelf -d <INIT>|grep NEEDED`` to find out which libraries
+ are required.
+
+5) **Binary cannot be loaded**: Make sure the binary's architecture matches
+ your hardware. E.g. i386 vs. x86_64 mismatch, or trying to load x86 on ARM
+ hardware. In case you tried loading a non-binary file here (shell script?),
+ you should make sure that the script specifies an interpreter in its
+ shebang header line (``#!/...``) that is fully working (including its
+ library dependencies). And before tackling scripts, better first test a
+ simple non-script binary such as ``/bin/sh`` and confirm its successful
+ execution. To find out more, add code ``to init/main.c`` to display
+ kernel_execve()s return values.
+
+Please extend this explanation whenever you find new failure causes
+(after all loading the init binary is a CRITICAL and hard transition step
+which needs to be made as painless as possible), then submit a patch to LKML.
+Further TODOs:
+
+- Implement the various ``run_init_process()`` invocations via a struct array
+ which can then store the ``kernel_execve()`` result value and on failure
+ log it all by iterating over **all** results (very important usability fix).
+- Try to make the implementation itself more helpful in general, e.g. by
+ providing additional error messages at affected places.
+