[wplug] Install Question -- upstream (RHEL 4) initrd/support bug

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Wed, 2007-07-25 at 13:57 -0400, Michael H. Semcheski wrote:
> But as it turned out, neither Ubuntu nor SysRescCD (gentoo based)
> recognized the 3ware card.

Many distros will have issues with various, advanced controllers, HBAs
(let alone pathing ;), etc...  There's a reason why some of us are
"still Red Hat lackeys," including using Fedora.  ;)

Red Hat's initrd is good, very flexible, but _far_ from perfect.  Even
RHEL will miss things that just don't get caught until it's installed on
enterprise customer storage setups that Red Hat itself.  Especially
since it's impossible to automate every initrd detection/configuration
and corresponding creation. 

But I've found no less than two (2) times where a little exception
handling would have avoided "screwing the pooch" in Anaconda.  ;)

> So, back to booting to rescue mode and getting it sorted out that way.

If you are supporting Fedora or RHEL (including CentOS and other
rebuilds), _never_ use anything else on them.  Trust me on this.  ;)


On Wed, 2007-07-25 at 14:37 -0400, Michael H. Semcheski wrote:
> Yes, this is definitely that bug.
> So you make three slices and an LVM2 disk label:
> /
> swap
> /home
> LVM
> is that right?

No.  Actually I install ...

1.  FAT16 (256MB OpenDOS 7.03 image**)
2.  Rescue (typically the latest Fedora that is newer)
3.  / (for the production RHEL)
4.  LVM (which has swap, /tmp, /var, etc...)

**NOTE:  I have a legal copy with a license allowing royalty-free usage.
FreeDOS is also an option.  I create this for older device firmware
updates.

> I'm sure LVM2 has some wonderful properties and important friends, but
> at this point, I think its a pain.  mount, damn you!

Volume Management is just unavoidable in the Enterprise space.  Even
Microsoft has its Logical Disk Manager (LDM) aka "Dynamic Disk" -- shows
up as type 42h slice (partition) on a legacy BIOS/DOS disk label
(partition table) for a reason.

Furthermore, 90% of issues I see with LVM/LVM2 aren't related to
LVM/LVM2, but PC BIOS, MD (especially putting LVM/LVM2 atop of MD --
_never_ do that, _always_ put MD inside of LVM slices), etc...  LVM/LVM2
is actually very resilient, and much better at deal with PC BIOS
"issues" than MD (long story).

However, there are still boot issues with LVM/LVM2.

> $ lvm
> > vgchange -a y

Er, um, you shouldn't have to run "lvm" -- "vgchange" should work
directly.  Hmmm, maybe it doesn't under a rescue boot (mind is slipping
-- been 3 months since I had to do such).

Also beware that Red Hat _does_ ship older 2.4 LVM support on even its
newer 2.6 rescue discs, precisely for compatibility/support.  I.e., I'm
not sure if the rescue disk matches the run-time in that "lvm" launches
the LVM2 suite.  I think it does, but be careful.

> $ mount /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 /mnt/sysimage
> mount: Mounting ... on ... failed: invalid arguement

That's not good.

> I can try that with -t ext3, -t ext2, -r, no difference.
> I get the sense that I'm missing something in lvm.  Don't know if
> thats the case.

Hmmm, I'd have to see this system first-hand.  I can _rarely_
troubleshoot boot-time issues remotely.  What would take me 20 e-mails
or even 40 statements in IRC would take me less than 2 minutes in front
of the system.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith         Professional, Technical Annoyance
mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org   http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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        Fission Power:  An Inconvenient Solution