oxidecomputer / oxidecomputer/propolis

Kernel panic - not syncing: IO-APIC + timer doesn't work!

Open
#1,149 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Dominant language
Rust
Stars
270
Forks
42
Avg merge
4d 5h
Merged PRs (30d)
6

Description

Booting a Debian 13 guest in the Canada Region (currently helios-2.0.23894) using propolis 58ab73bde89ade637b0ca8118682ee9575da6c2a failed with the following kernel panic:

Loading Linux 6.1.0-28-amd64 ...Loading Linux 6.1.0-28-amd64 ...

Loading initial ramdisk ...Loading initial ramdisk ...

[    0.072393] ..MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to IO-APIC
[    0.401243] Kernel panic - not syncing: IO-APIC + timer doesn't work!  Boot with apic=debug and send a report.  Then try booting with the 'noapic' option.
[    0.403074] CPU: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 6.1.0-28-amd64 #1  Debian 6.1.119-1
[    0.404066] Hardware name: Oxide OxVM, BIOS v0.8 The Aftermath 30, 3185 YOLD
[    0.404948] Call Trace:
[    0.405282]  <TASK>
[    0.405533]  dump_stack_lvl+0x44/0x5c
[    0.406057]  panic+0x118/0x2f4
[    0.406430]  setup_IO_APIC+0x803/0x83b
[    0.406893]  ? _raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore+0x19/0x40
[    0.407443]  ? clear_IO_APIC_pin+0x169/0x240
[    0.408024]  apic_intr_mode_init+0x101/0x106
[    0.408543]  x86_late_time_init+0x20/0x34
[    0.409156]  start_kernel+0x678/0x733
[    0.409662]  secondary_startup_64_no_verify+0xe5/0xeb
[    0.410233]  </TASK>
[    0.410527] ---[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: IO-APIC + timer doesn't work!  Boot with apic=debug and send a report.  Then try booting with the 'noapic' option. ]---
    0.401243] Kernel panic - not syncing: IO-APIC + timer doesn't work!  Boot with apic=debug and send a report.  Then try booting with the 'noapic' option.
[    0.403074] CPU: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 6.1.0-28-amd64 #1  Debian 6.1.119-1
[    0.404066] Hardware name: Oxide OxVM, BIOS v0.8 The Aftermath 30, 3185 YOLD
[    0.404948] Call Trace:
[    0.405282]  <TASK>
[    0.405533]  dump_stack_lvl+0x44/0x5c
[    0.406057]  panic+0x118/0x2f4
[    0.406430]  setup_IO_APIC+0x803/0x83b
[    0.406893]  ? _raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore+0x19/0x40
[    0.407443]  ? clear_IO_APIC_pin+0x169/0x240
[    0.408024]  apic_intr_mode_init+0x101/0x106
[    0.408543]  x86_late_time_init+0x20/0x34
[    0.409156]  start_kernel+0x678/0x733
[    0.409662]  secondary_startup_64_no_verify+0xe5/0xeb
[    0.410233]  </TASK>
[    0.410527] ---[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: IO-APIC + timer doesn't work!  Boot with apic=debug and send a report.  Then try booting with the 'noapic' option. ]---

It's worth noting that there are about 10 other VMMs on that host and it's slow to respond to some commands (like zpool history).

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reproducing the Debian 13 guest boot on the Canada Region host using the reported propolis revision, then inspect the IO-APIC and timer setup involved in the boot path. Done means the guest boots without the reported kernel panic and the host remains responsive under the stated workload.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
debian, linux, rust
Domain
infrastructure, operating-systems
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.