Can't find /etc/hostid

jimp

Can't find /etc/hostid is not a fatal error. It's just one of the messages that gets printed early in the boot process (usually between when it loads the kernel and kernel modules).

There should be something else there before/after that with a better clue. Knowing the exact content of the screen where it's stopping may be helpful.

stephenw10

Example normal boot:

 /---- Welcome to Netgate pfSense Plus ----\      __________________________  
 |                                         |     /                       ___\ 
 |  1. Boot Multi user [Enter]             |    |                      /`     
 |  2. Boot Single user                    |    |                     /    :-|
 |  3. Escape to loader prompt             |    |      _________  ___/    /_ |
 |  4. Reboot                              |    |    /` ____   / /__    ___/ |
 |  5. Cons: Serial                        |    |   /  /   /  /    /   /     |
 |                                         |    |  /  /___/  /    /   /      |
 |  Options:                               |    | /   ______/    /   /  _    |
 |  6. Kernel: default/kernel (1 of 2)     |    |/   /          /   / _| |_  |
 |  7. Boot Options                        |        /          /___/ |_   _| |
 |  8. Boot Environments                   |       /                   |_|   |
 |                                         |      /_________________________/ 
 \-----------------------------------------/                                  |
   Autoboot in 0 seconds. [Space] to pause 

Loading kernel...
/boot/kernel/kernel text=0x19c370 text=0xfe1240 text=0x17ddcc8 data=0x180 data=0x223710+0x3db8f0 0x8+0x1c8858+0x8+0x1d6fc8
Loading configured modules...
/boot/kernel/opensolaris.ko size 0x1e2b0 at 0x35a0000
/boot/entropy size=0x1000
/boot/kernel/cryptodev.ko size 0x76f8 at 0x35c0000
can't find '/etc/hostid'
/boot/kernel/zfs.ko size 0x5d7790 at 0x35c8000
staging 0x68c00000-0x6d0b6000 (not copying) tramp 0x750f8000 PT4 0x73f49000
Start @ 0xffffffff8039d000 ...
GDB: no debug ports present
KDB: debugger backends: ddb
KDB: current backend: ddb
---<<BOOT>>---
...

Gypher

@jimp

When the reboot occurs the normal boot screen (that @stephenw10 posted) appears, then I get a few normal messages, the "can't find /etc/hostid" message and then it just stops. This is the only error message I see, everything else looks normal. (And there isn't much else on the screen...)
I will try to take a photo of the screen next time the issue occurs, unfortunately I can't take a normal screenshot, as this is a hardware device.

Rick

fireodo

@Gypher said in Can't find /etc/hostid:

the "can't find /etc/hostid" message

If your machine is up you can generate a hostid by this commands:

/etc/rc.d/hostid start

/etc/rc.d/hostid_save start

Regards

stephenw10

You don't need to though. That message is normal as shown in my output above.

@Gypher Exactly how far past the hostid message message does it get? Where does it differ from what I posted?

clablu12

@stephenw10
I'm having the same problem and I thought it was the hostid file as well. The normal boot screen goes so fast usually I don't know what a normal sequence is. This is as far as it gets and it just stays there until I hold the power button to turn it off.

Welcome to pfSense

Boot Single user CEnter]
Boot Multi user
Escape to loader prompt
Reboot
Cons: Serial
Options:
Kernel: default/kernel (1 of 1)
Boot Options

Loading kernel
/boot/kernel/kernel text=0x19ba18 text=0xfdab90 text=0x17dcbf0 data=0x180 data=0x
Loading configured modules.
/boot/kernel/zfs.ko size 0x5d7790 at 0x359d000
/boot/kernel/opensolaris.ko size Øx1e2b0 at 0x3b75000
/boot/entropy size=0x1000
can't find '/etc/hostid'
staging 0x5ec00000 (not copying> tramp 0x6d7be000 PT4 0x6d7b5000
Start @ 0xffffffff8039c000 ...
EFI framebuffer information:
addr, size 0x90000000, Øx1d4c00
dimensions 800 x 688
stride 800
masks 0x00ff0000, 0x0000ff00, 0x000000ff, 0xff00000e

stephenw10

That's a UEFI console issue.

Is that a new install? Which pfSense version?

Can you try installing as legacy boot?

clablu12

@stephenw10
I've had the install for some time and it was upgraded all the way to 2.7.2 and it suddenly started happening. I reinstalled 2.7.2 with the same bios settings I had before and did get it to come online but it gave the same error intermittently. After I reloaded my acme, haproxy, and openvpn config, it does it 100% now. That makes me think there is something with one of those configs but I was hoping to figure out the issue so that I don't have to set them all up again from scratch.
Should I change bios to legacy boot and reinstall with that method? But why would it have worked before with UEFI?

stephenw10

It's due to with the way the loader stages the required parts at boot: https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/15074

There is work ongoing to correctly fix it. Booting legacy avoids the issue entirely though if you have that option.

clablu12

@stephenw10
Thank you for this information. After setting my bios to legacy mode and reinstalling I did not get this error even after reloading all my previous config.