Kernel panic – not syncing: Attempted to kill init! CentOS 6.2

by | Jul 6, 2012 | IT Tips | 8 comments

Just installed CentOS 6.2 into a VMWare environment and rebooted and got:

Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

The cause was I had edited /etc/selinux/config to disable selinux but edited the wrong settting:

This is the mistake I made

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
#     enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced.
#     permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
#     disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.
SELINUX=enforcing
# SELINUXTYPE= can take one of these two values:
#     targeted - Targeted processes are protected,
#     mls - Multi Level Security protection.
SELINUXTYPE=disabled

This is what it should have looked like

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
#     enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced.
#     permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
#     disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.
SELINUX=disabled
# SELINUXTYPE= can take one of these two values:
#     targeted - Targeted processes are protected,
#     mls - Multi Level Security protection.
SELINUXTYPE=targeted

 

8 Comments

  1. Damian Benavides
    Damian Benavides on July 19, 2012 at 5:46 PM

    Hi. I found a funny answer, see below:

    1. Reboot your VM or PC.
    2. Press key ESC.
    3. Select the Kernel for running and press key e for edit it.
    4. Insert selinuex=0 at end of kernel parameter line and press enter key.
    5. Press b key for boot.

    Is a possible solution but I don't found anyone more with the same problem, or thread on internet.

    Thanks for read...

    Reply
      • Damian Benavides
        Damian Benavides on July 19, 2012 at 5:52 PM

        Ok. I can edit selinux config file and correct the error made before.

        Reboot.......................................................................

        Perfectly!!!!

        Thanks

        Reply
    • ozkar
      ozkar on November 12, 2014 at 2:48 PM

      thank´s men.

      Reply
  2. Michelet
    Michelet on August 5, 2012 at 1:59 PM

    Thanks so much for this nice posting. It works very well for me after messing with selinux. You guys are genius.

    Reply
  3. Willis Montgomery III
    Willis Montgomery III on August 14, 2012 at 2:40 AM

    How did you determine that selinux was the problem? I have a similar issue, at least the error is similar (but not using VMWARE). thank you

    Reply
    • James McDonald
      James McDonald on August 14, 2012 at 8:10 PM

      I determined that seLinux was the problem because it was the last thing I mucked around with before the problem appeared.

      Reply
  4. syed
    syed on September 11, 2012 at 7:16 PM

    Superb!!!! This saved my 4 hours of re-configuring the server.

    Thanks.

    Reply

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