kernel panic - not syncing; attempted to kill init

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SLES for POWER
1

This is a lpar on Power8.
We upgraded the SLES 11 SP 4 to SLES 12 SP 3 and got the following error:

kernel panic - not syncing; attempted to kill init

2

Hello sharfuddin,

The “Exec format error” leads me to think this problem is related to a cross-architecture upgrade. I will explain.

SLES11 for IBM Power is big endian whereas SLES12 and newer SLES versions for IBM Power are little endian. In-place upgrades from SLES11 on IBM Power to SLES12 on IBM Power are not supported. Please read the “Important: Cross-architecture Upgrades Are Not Supported” section in https://www.suse.com/documentation/sles-12/singlehtml/book_sle_deployment/book_sle_deployment.html#sec.update.sle.paths.

Consider opening a support request with SUSE for more information.

Regards,

Mike