Booting is ocassionally interrupted on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 systems that are encrypted with Symantec Drive Encryption 10.3.2 for Linux

Products

• Drive Encryption

Issue/Introduction

Booting is ocassionally interrupted on encrypted Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 systems. Either a blank screen or the following message is displayed:

Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)...

Environment

• The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 operating system is installed.
• The primary drive is encrypted using Symantec Drive Encryption 10.3.2 for Linux.

Resolution

Workarounds

Depending on your requirements, apply one of the following workarounds:
 

Temporary workaround

1. After you authenticate successfully at the PGP BootGuard screen, access the GRUB2 menu.
    
2. Select the kernel that you want to start, and press the E key to edit the kernel parameters.
    
3. At the end of the linux16 line, add the edd=off kernel parameter.
    
4. Resume the system boot using the new kernel parameter.
    

Note: This change is not permanent and lasts for only one boot.

Permanent workaround

This workaround disables the EDD in the grub file, which prevents it from failing at boot.

1. Open a Terminal session as a root user.
    
2. Edit the /etc/default/grub file , and add the following value to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX key in the file:
   
   edd=off
    
3. To rebuild the grub.cfg file, enter the following command:
   
   grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
    

For more information about customizing the GRUB 2 menu in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, visit https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/System_Administrators_Guide/sec-Customizing_GRUB_2_Menu.html