14.3.7. Linux Kernel Panics because "init" process dies

Question:

I once had a running system but suddenly, without any changes, the Linux kernel started crashing because the "init" process was dying each time I tried to boot the system, for example like that:

...
VFS: Mounted root (nfs filesystem).
Freeing unused kernel memory: 140k init
init has generated signal 11 but has no handler for it
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

Answer:

You probably run your system with the root file system mounted over NFS. Change into the root directory of your target file system, and remove the file "etc/ld.so.cache". That should fix this problem:

# cd /opt/eldk/ppc_6xx/
# rm -f etc/ld.so.cache

Explanation:

Normally, the file "etc/ld.so.cache" contains a compiled list of system libraries. This file is used by the dynamic linker/loader ld.so to cache library information. If it does not exist, rebuilt automatically. For some reason, a corrupted or partial file was written to your root file system. This corrupt file then confused the dynamic linker so that it crashed when trying to start the init process.