K11693: An ARX system configured with a hostname greater than 32 characters may fail to boot

Known Issue

Original Publication Date: Jun 16, 2010

Update Date: Nov 2, 2018

Known Issue

This is the result of a known issue. The hostname for an ARX system should not be longer than 32 characters; however, the CLI hostname command and the ARX Manager GUI allow the hostname to be created using greater than 32 characters. When an ARX system configured with a hostname greater than 32 characters fails to boot, error messages that appear similar to the following example may display on the console:

Booting linux on quiet serial8250 console... INIT: version 2.86 booting Setting parameters of disc: (none). mount: can't find / in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab *** ERROR! Cannot fsck root fs because it is not mounted read-only! mount: can't find / in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab mount: can't find /proc in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab df: cannot read table of mounted filesystems

*** ERROR: DF failure *** ABORTED

Note: The hostname is not the fully-qualified domain name (FQDN). The ip domain-list command is used to set one or more domains for the ARX system. For information about the hostname or ip domain-list commands, refer to the ARX CLI Reference Guide.

F5 tracked this issue as ID 38891 and it was fixed in ARX 5.2.0. For information about upgrading, refer to the ARX release notes.

Additionally, this issue is fixed in a hotfix available for ARX 5.0.6 and 5.1.5. Customers affected by this issue should contact F5 Technical Support, referencing this article number and the associated ID number, to request the hotfix.

Workaround

Configure the hostname to be 32 characters or fewer using the CLI hostname command or the ARX Manager GUI. Applies to:

Product: Legacy Products, ARX 5.1.5, 5.1.0, 5.0.6, 5.0.5, 5.0.1, 5.0.0