Boot Problem

[craig.g...@gmail.com]

I am having at boot problem with my Qubes OS 3.2. When I boot up I enter the disk password and the boot process continues until it gets to the line...

A start job is running for Qubes NetVM startup (32s / no limit)

And it hangs. The HDD turns off and the computer will stay here never booting or shutting down until you force it to turn off. Anyone have an idea of what is going on and how to fix it?

Thank you,

Craig

[Manuel Amador (Rudd-O)]

On 04/19/2017 08:35 PM, craig.g...@gmail.com wrote:
> I am having at boot problem with my Qubes OS 3.2. When I boot up I enter the disk password and the boot process continues until it gets to the line...
>
> A start job is running for Qubes NetVM startup (32s / no limit)
>

You must boot in rescue mode (add boot kernel command line option
systemd.unit=rescue.target) and then disable qubes-netvm.service, then
reboot.

Alternatively boot with kernel command line option
systemd.mask=qubes-netvm.service .

Both of these options will mask the NetVM startup, which will then let
you diagnose the problem more accurately.

These options can be added in the GRUB2 command line editor (hit e) when
the GRUB menu appears after the BIOS screen. If no menu appears, press
ESC multiple times right after the BIOS screen. You'll see the menu then.

If your machine boots from UEFI, I do not know how to do this procedure,
sorry.

--
Rudd-O
http://rudd-o.com/

[craig.g...@gmail.com]

Thank you for your information. Using your directions I have managed to get into my Qubes system. I disabled qubes-netvm.service and my system will now shutdown and startup without any kernel command line options. Of course this means I have no network connections to anything. If I enable the qubes-netvm.service and start sys-net the Qubes OS freezes up and I have to power cycle the laptop. How do I fix the qubes-netvm.service? It seems to be causing the problem but what do I check next?

Thank you,

Craig Jesson

[Andrew Morgan]

On 04/22/2017 03:21 PM,
craig.g...@gmail.com wrote:

When I was having issues with my NetVM, I backed off all my AppVMs and
templates (sans the NetVM) to an external drive, reinstalled QubesOS,
generated a new sys-net and sys-firewall, then restored all my AppVMs
back again. Fixed all my issues.

May be a good last resort if you're not sure what's the issue with the
NetVM.

Andrew

[craig.g...@gmail.com]

First I want to thank Manual Amador and Andrew Morgan for your help. Using Manual's advice I was able to get into my frozen laptop. I then used Andrew's advice to backup all of my vm's except for sys-net and sys-firewall. Then I reinstalled Qubes OS v. 3.2. I have figured out what went wrong. Qubes on my laptop started freezing after a recent update. The update replaced qubes-netvm.service with a new qubes-netvm.service. This overwrote changes I made to qubes-netvm.service to make my Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5761 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe and BCM4313 802.11bgn Wireless Network Adapter work. Unfortunately I did not backup the qubes-netvm.service to document the changes I made. So I am trying to remember what I did to get these cards working. But everything I have tried has not worked. I did the "Assigning Devices" work around listed here https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/assigning-devices/
and This does not seem to matter on the BCM5761 Ethernet card. But it does seem necessary for the wireless card. Right now I have the wireless card disabled in the BIOS figuring that I will get each card working one at a time. So the Ethernet card shows up and I have it assigned to the sys-net vm but it will not get an IP address. I have live booted the laptop with Knoppix and I can get an IP address and use the Internet so I know the Ethernet card, the cable, and the residential gateway are all working fine so it has to be some kind of configuration problem in Qubes. Here is my Qubes HCL Report...

---
layout:
'hcl'
type:
'laptop'
hvm:
'yes'
iommu:
'yes'
slat:
'yes'
tpm:
'unknown'
brand: |
Dell Inc.
model: |
Latitude E5520
bios: |
A14
cpu: |
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2540M CPU @ 2.60GHz
cpu-short: |
FIXME
chipset: |
Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller [8086:0104] (rev 09)
chipset-short: |
FIXME
gpu: |
Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0126] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
gpu-short: |
FIXME
network: |
Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11bgn Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5761 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 10)
memory: |
8089
scsi: |
ST9500423AS Rev: DEM1
DVD+-RW GT60N Rev: A102

versions:

- works:
'FIXME:yes|no|partial'
qubes: |
R3.2
xen: |
4.6.1
kernel: |
4.4.14-11
remark: |
FIXME
credit: |
FIXAUTHOR
link: |
FIXLINK

---

Here is my Qubes-pre-netvm.service

[Unit]
Description=Netvm fixup
Before=qubes-netvm.service

[Service]
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c echo '0000:09:00.0 > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/pciback/permissive'
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Anybody have a clue as how to make my network cards work?

Thank you,

Craig Jesson

[drownt...@gmail.com]

Hey, did you ever get this issue resolved? I am using a Dell Precision Workstation and I ONLY have the Broadcom NetExtreme so I have no networking. I see this model of NIC constantly mentioned on Qubes with this issue.

[sourcexorapprentice]

For the Precision, I fortunately had an Intel NIC (Precision M4700 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/qubes-users/-5Vbi5vhbms) but experienced the Broadcom pains too. Here's some ideas:

You can get an RTL8187 for about $5 on eBay, works great. I would remove the Broadcom wifi card and swap in a Realtek wifi card, disable the integrated NIC ethernet card in Bios, and install Qubes in legacy mode - not UEFI (in case you need Grub for recovery options later). In Bios, this should be in System configuration, Integrated NIC and uncheck those boxes (check the whole menu for other locations too).

If you need ethernet, then after install you can look online on how to install the specific Broadcom drivers into sys-net VM's template (if you can find a safe source). Then reboot into bios and re-enable the ethernet NIC, and after boot in the Qubes sys-net VM settings move the PCI bridge for the ethernet controller into the "selected" column and try restarting the VM and using the ethernet card. If it works reboot to see if everything is still successful. If it won't boot, then just disable ethernet again in Bios and try maybe switching the sys-net VM template to Debian and installing the drivers there in case you get the support.