Installation Fails on UEFI Based Systems

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 Service Pack 1 (SLES 12 SP1)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 Service Pack 1 (SLED 12 SP1)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications Service Pack 1

Situation

Installation of the above products fails very early, shortly after the initial ramdisk is loaded but before the YaST installer is started. Symptoms include errors similar to:

plymouthd: relocation error: /lib64/libm.so.6...

Resolution

Use SUSE kernel release 3.12.62-60.62.1 or later. SUSE has created an installation kit containing this fix (in addition to others) to be used for installation. The installation kit can be found at:

https://drivers.suse.com/suse/installer-update/sle-12-sp1-x86_64/2.0/

Cause

A bug introduced in the service pack 1 kernel can, under certain circumstances, cause memory corruption that affects the initial ramdisk file system. This corruption happens once during the kernel initialization phase and can cause installation to fail. The issue only occurs with UEFI based platforms.

Additional Information

The effect of this bug is dependent on system memory layout and firmware memory mapping and can happen at every boot using affected kernels including post installation. To avoid this bug from potentially causing other unforeseen issues, SUSE strongly recommends updating all UEFI based installations to kernel release 3.12.62-60.62.1 or later.

Disclaimer

This Support Knowledgebase provides a valuable tool for SUSE customers and parties interested in our products and solutions to acquire information, ideas and learn from one another. Materials are provided for informational, personal or non-commercial use within your organization and are presented "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.