Are you stuck with the CONFIG_SCSI_VIRTIO  disabled error? Our Linode Support team is here to help you with your questions and concerns.

CONFIG_SCSI_VIRTIO disabled – Resolved

If you have come across the “CONFIG_SCSI_VIRTIO is disabled” error message, you have come to the right place. According to our experts, this error indicates that the root disk is not available, preventing the VM from booting.

Recently, one of our customers came across this error message after upgrading from 5.15.16 to 5.15.19. In this scenario, our experts had to rescue boot the VM and rebuild the kernel after updating CONFIG_SCSI_VIRTIO from “no” to “yes.”

Although the changes to the disk may not have been done by Linode, the Kernel may not have been running while the build was being reconfigured. Hence, resulting in the CONFIG_SCSI_VIRTIO  disabled issue.

In other words, when genkernel accesses the configuration from a running kernel, it does not get the virtual filesystem entries with the running kernel’s configuration options. In this case, it may rely on default values.

Furthermore, we can easily check the Linode’s Activity Feed to find out more about the kernel booted earlier.

Our experts would also like to point out that the genkernel will not automatically generate a custom kernel configuration. In other words, although automating the kernel build process and assembling the initramfsis done by genkernel, it will not generate a custom kernel configuration file.

If kernel configuration is missing, genkernel relies on a generic kernel configuration file leading to a general-purpose kernel.

If you need further help with the CONFIG_SCSI_VIRTIO  disabled issue, drop us a line in the comments. Our experts are here to lend a hand.

[Need assistance with a different issue? Our team is available 24/7.]

Conclusion

To conclude, our Support Techs demonstrated the cause behind the CONFIG_SCSI_VIRTIO  disabled error and how to resolve the issue.