OCI: Instance Fails to Boot and Drops to dracut Prompt

Applies to

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure - Version N/A and later 

Linux x86-64 

Goal

This document outlines the steps required to recover an instance that drops to the dracut prompt, for the specific symptoms below.

A system can drop to the dracut prompt for multiple reasons, this is a specific case.

Symptoms 

The instance fails to boot, and drops to the dracut:/# prompt. 

The following message are seen at the console: 

Starting Dracut Emergency Shell... 
Warning: /dev/mapper/ocivolume-root does not exist 
Warning: /dev/ocivolume does not exist 
Warning: /dev/ocivolume/root does not exist 
 
Generating "/run/initramfs/rdsosreport.txt" 
dracut:/#