No console on F45 Server after system-upgrade

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1

Hello,

I’ve got a machine running F45 Server, without any graphics software installed, that doesn’t display the console login prompt. The machine only contains an old-style 256K VGA PCI card, since I needed both PCIe slots on this motherboard for 10GB networking. By default it’s only displaying a blank screen from part way through the boot process. If I use ++ or higher, then back with ++, it will display any late boot dmesg output, but no amount of key pressing will get me a login prompt.

The boot log shows the following error at the point the console screen goes blank:

Aug 13 11:59:29 mymachine.example.com agetty[1000]: checkname failed: Operation not permitted

This is agetty trying (and failing) to get the current user name before starting the console, since it’s all done as configured.

The machine comes up properly otherwise. SSH access works correctly.

Any ideas what I need to get it to come up with a console?

Inxi -Fzxx produces:

# inxi -Fzxx
System:
  Kernel: 7.1.6-201.fc44.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 16.1.1
  Console: pty pts/3 Distro: Fedora Linux 45 (Server Edition Prerelease)
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: A8N-SLI v: 1.XX serial: <filter> Firmware: BIOS
    vendor: Phoenix v: ASUS A8N-SLI Revision 1014 date: 11/25/2005
CPU:
  Info: single core model: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ bits: 64 type: UP arch: K8 rev: 1 cache:
    L1: 128 KiB L2: 512 KiB
  Speed (MHz): 1000 min/max: 1000/2200 core: 1: 1000 bogomips: 4432
  Flags-basic: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3
Graphics:
  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Rage 3 [Rage XL PCI] driver: N/A arch: Rage-3
    bus-ID: 0a:08.0 chip-ID: 1002:4752
  Display: unspecified server: N/A driver: N/A tty: 211x49
  API: OpenGL Message: GL data unavailable in console for root.
  Info: Tools: api: glxinfo x11: xdriinfo, xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
  Device-1: NVIDIA CK804 AC97 Audio vendor: ASUSTeK K8N4/A8N Series Mainboard driver: snd_intel8x0
    v: kernel bus-ID: 00:04.0 chip-ID: 10de:0059
  API: ALSA v: k7.1.6-201.fc44.x86_64 status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.6.8 status: off with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: off 2: wireplumber
    status: off 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin
Network:
  Device-1: Aquantia AQtion AQC100 NBase-T/IEEE 802.3an Ethernet [Atlantic 10G] vendor: TRENDnet
    driver: atlantic v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 4 port: N/A bus-ID: 01:00.0
    chip-ID: 1d6a:00b1 temp: 65.0 C
  IF: enp1s0 state: up speed: 10000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1
    port: 6000 bus-ID: 05:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8125
  IF: enp5s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  Device-3: Realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1
    port: 7000 bus-ID: 06:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8125
  IF: enp6s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  Device-4: Realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1
    port: 8000 bus-ID: 07:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8125
  IF: enp7s0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-5: Realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1
    port: 9000 bus-ID: 08:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8125
  IF: enp8s0 state: up speed: 2500 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 19.8 GiB (4.3%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Maxtor model: STM3500630AS size: 465.76 GiB speed: 3.0 Gb/s
    serial: <filter> temp: 41 C
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 464.7 GiB used: 19.26 GiB (4.1%) fs: xfs dev: /dev/dm-0 mapped: fedora_mymachine-root
  ID-2: /boot size: 960 MiB used: 553.8 MiB (57.7%) fs: xfs dev: /dev/sda2
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 1.91 GiB used: 168.3 MiB (8.6%) priority: 100 dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 37.0 C mobo: 42.0 C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): cpu: 1406 case-1: 0
  Power: 12v: N/A 5v: N/A 3.3v: 3.18 vbat: N/A
Info:
  Memory: total: 2 GiB available: 1.91 GiB used: 545.7 MiB (27.9%)
  Processes: 161 Power: uptime: 1d 13h 28m wakeups: 0 Init: systemd v: 261 default: multi-user
  Packages: pm: rpm pkgs: N/A note: see --rpm Compilers: N/A Shell: Bash v: 5.3.15
    running-in: pty pts/3 inxi: 3.3.41

ps -ef | grep kms produces the following:

# ps -ef | grep kms
root         937       1  0 Aug13 ?        00:00:00 kmscon --vt=tty6 --no-switchvt --login -- /sbin/agetty -8 -o -p -- \u --noclear -- - $TERM
root       30793       1  0 Aug13 ?        00:00:00 kmscon --vt=tty3 --no-switchvt --login -- /sbin/agetty -8 -o -p -- \u --noclear -- - $TERM
root       30795       1  0 Aug13 ?        00:00:00 kmscon --vt=tty4 --no-switchvt --login -- /sbin/agetty -8 -o -p -- \u --noclear -- - $TERM
root       30796   30795  0 Aug13 pts/6    00:00:00 /sbin/agetty -8 -o -p -- \u --noclear -- - kmscon
root       30797       1  0 Aug13 ?        00:00:00 kmscon --vt=tty5 --no-switchvt --login -- /sbin/agetty -8 -o -p -- \u --noclear -- - $TERM
root       30798   30797  0 Aug13 pts/7    00:00:00 /sbin/agetty -8 -o -p -- \u --noclear -- - kmscon
root       31175     937  0 Aug13 pts/1    00:00:00 /sbin/agetty -8 -o -p -- \u --noclear -- - kmscon
root       31320       1  0 Aug13 ?        00:00:00 kmscon --vt=tty2 --no-switchvt --login -- /sbin/agetty -8 -o -p -- \u --noclear -- - $TERM
root       31322   31320  0 Aug13 pts/0    00:00:00 /sbin/agetty -8 -o -p -- \u --noclear -- - kmscon
root       42767   30793  0 16:52 pts/4    00:00:00 /sbin/agetty -8 -o -p -- \u --noclear -- - kmscon

I really don’t want to add the overhead of the gui software. This is a bare-bones Athlon64 (the original version) that I’m running as a firewall until the CPU conks out on my.

Best regards,

Eric

3

Hi Vlad,

I do that on EVERY machine I configure. I come from the old-dark ages, when you had to watch the failure point of a boot process. I don’t want a graphic swirly, I want data!

Here’s my /etc/kernel/cmdline and systemctl get-default for this machine:

# cat /etc/kernel/cmdline
root=/dev/mapper/fedora_mymachine-root ro rd.lvm.lv=fedora_mymachine/root amd.iommu=soft rd.driver.blacklist=nova_core modprobe.blacklist=nova_core

# systemctl get-default
multi-user.target

Best regards,

Eric

5

rpm -q amd-gpu-firmware produced the following:

# rpm -q amd-gpu-firmware
amd-gpu-firmware-20260810-1.fc45.noarch

rpm -V produced no output. I reinstalled the amd firmware and modprobed it.

lsmod output is as follows:

# lsmod | grep -E 'radeon|drm'
radeon               2519040  0
drm_buddy              12288  1 amdgpu
i2c_algo_bit           24576  2 amdgpu,radeon
drm_ttm_helper         20480  2 amdgpu,radeon
ttm                   167936  3 amdgpu,radeon,drm_ttm_helper
drm_exec               12288  2 amdgpu,radeon
drm_panel_backlight_quirks    12288  1 amdgpu
drm_suballoc_helper    24576  2 amdgpu,radeon
video                  81920  2 amdgpu,radeon
drm_display_helper    364544  2 amdgpu,radeon
cec                   110592  2 drm_display_helper,amdgpu

The last 80 messages were from firewalld. the dmesg w/grep produce this:

# dmesg | grep -iE 'drm|radeon|error'
[138382.403512] [drm] radeon kernel modesetting enabled.

Looks like the lsmod actually loaded it for the first time. I’ll reboot and see if it loads automajicallly (as they say in Brazil).

Best regards,

Eric

7

@vgaetera , adding vga=791 did the trick for me. Thanks. I didn’t try the other settings. This motherboard has ancient BIOS, and is pre-EFI. There’s also a built in NVIDIA 10/100mbps Ethernet that is the nova_core elements being disabled on the kernel command line.

Thanks,

Eric