18.04: kernel panic - not syncing: attempting to kill init! exit code-0x00000100

Question

I have dual boot system with Windows and Ubuntu.

• Distributor ID: Ubuntu
• Description: Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS
• Release: 18.04
• Codename: bionic

All of a sudden my ubuntu terminal crashed and won't start, so I did a system reboot. But now on system reboot I am getting end kernel panic- not syncing:attempted to kill init! exit code=0x00000100.

Please help how can I start my system without losing any data.

Solution

I had similar problem:

[    4.764737] SGI XFS with ACLs, security attributes, realtime, no debug enabled
[    4.776126] XFS (xvda1): Mounting V4 Filesystem
[    4.893714] XFS (xvda1): Ending clean mount
[    5.004157] Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init! exitcode=0x00000100
[    5.004157] 
[    5.006315] CPU: 3 PID: 1 Comm: init Not tainted 4.19.0-9-amd64 #1 Debian 4.19.118-2
[    5.007370] Call Trace:
[    5.008428]  dump_stack+0x66/0x90
[    5.009433]  panic+0xe7/0x24a
[    5.010396]  do_exit.cold.22+0x6b/0x6f
[    5.011340]  ? handle_mm_fault+0xd6/0x200
[    5.012250]  do_group_exit+0x3a/0xa0
[    5.013152]  __x64_sys_exit_group+0x14/0x20
[    5.014035]  do_syscall_64+0x53/0x110
[    5.014975]  entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xa9
[    5.015880] RIP: 0033:0x7f6ea102e9d6
[    5.016828] Code: 00 4c 8b 0d bc 44 0f 00 eb 19 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 89 d7 89 f0 0f 05 48 3d 00 f0 ff ff 77 22 f4 89 d7 44 89 c0 0f 05 <48> 3d 00 f0 ff ff 76 e2 f7 d8 64 41 89 01 eb da 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00
[    5.019793] RSP: 002b:00007ffe7a11ef98 EFLAGS: 00000202 ORIG_RAX: 00000000000000e7
[    5.020847] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00005607492f0704 RCX: 00007f6ea102e9d6
[    5.021883] RDX: 0000000000000001 RSI: 000000000000003c RDI: 0000000000000001
[    5.022945] RBP: 0000000000000001 R08: 00000000000000e7 R09: ffffffffffffff80
[    5.023988] R10: 0000000000000006 R11: 0000000000000202 R12: 00007ffe7a11f328
[    5.025046] R13: 00007ffe7a11f320 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: 0000000000000000
[    5.026115] Kernel Offset: disabled

Finally appeared that the directories: sys proc dev run tmp ware missing from the root file system ..

BR LAZA

Comments

[Admin]

Yeah, @gman is on the spot here. If the exact panic messages is: Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init! exitcode=0x00000100 And the call trace contains: entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+... Then the issue is that root file system is missing one or more of mount points: sys proc dev run tmp. If the symptoms are not EXACTLY the same as described, then go with what @heynnema wrote, as his answer allows to diagnose further a similar issue - as the cause can be in initrd, or in rootfs, or a hardware problem on the motherboard.

[kanehekili]

So what is the answer? Can you tell the OP how to fix it? This is just a "Yeah, I've got that problem too " comment.