Failed to switch root: Specified switch root path '/sysroot' does not seem to be an OS tree. os-release file is missing

Ask Fedora
1

Namasthe Team,

Can you please let me know what does the text in the subject of this post mean ?

Can you please review following output and assist ?

journalctl --no-pager --output=short-full --unit=initrd-switch-root.service
Wed 2023-08-16 16:52:30 IST fedora systemd[1]: Starting initrd-switch-root.service - Switch Root...
Wed 2023-08-16 16:52:30 IST fedora @ystemctl[548]: Failed to switch root: Specified switch root path '/sysroot' does not seem to be an OS tree. os-release file is missing.
Wed 2023-08-16 16:52:30 IST fedora systemd[1]: initrd-switch-root.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Wed 2023-08-16 16:52:30 IST fedora systemd[1]: initrd-switch-root.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Wed 2023-08-16 16:52:30 IST fedora systemd[1]: Failed to start initrd-switch-root.service - Switch Root.
Wed 2023-08-16 16:52:30 IST fedora systemd[1]: initrd-switch-root.service: Triggering OnFailure= dependencies.
Wed 2023-08-16 17:06:04 IST fedora systemd[1]: Starting initrd-switch-root.service - Switch Root...

Regards,
Ramu Mohan Srinivasan Radhakrishnan

2

Hello @ramumsrk ,
Please see this bugzilla report on this issue 1492208 – Failed to switch root: Specified switch root path /sysroot does not seem to be an OS tree. os-release file is missing

3

Thanks a lot for your help and assistance @jakfrost .

After landing at the emergency shell, I tried the following and the booting process moved forward to completion

mount -v -t btrfs -o rw --source /dev/sda6 --target /sysroot
exit

Can you please help me on the following ?

What is initrd-switch-root.service used for ?

This looks like a wrapper around command $( which systemctl ) --no-block switch-root /sysroot

There isn’t a relevant man page! Can I request for additional help from your end ?

4

When the system starts up there is a binary shim in the efi and an initrd image in the /boot partition (ext4). This is what actually boots up the system as the boot loader is in control until then. Once this service has finished it’s part of start up, it switches to the system root (/) of your system.

5

Thanks once again @jakfrost for your help and assistance. I will try once again from my end and reach out to you for help and assistance