Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-factory (581 mails)

[Jiri Srain <jsrain@xxxxxxx>]

On Monday 01 of December 2008 09:43:17 Josef Reidinger wrote:
> Rajko M. wrote:
> > On Friday 28 November 2008 07:13:35 pm Carlos E. R. wrote:
> > > On Saturday, 2008-11-29 at 01:58 +0100, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:
> > > > I had /boot (or / in case of no extra /boot) on XFS for what must have
> > > > been two years, too, and can confirm you're just lucky.  As I was
> > > > during most of those two years.
> > > >
> > > > My experience matches Stano's statement:  You may be lucky, you may be
> > > > not -- ultimately it's going to hit, so just don't do it. ;-)
> > >
> > > Perhaps somebody can explain what the problem is, why it is dangerous
> > > and they have been lucky, what can/should they do to avoid problems... 
> > > ;-)
> > >
> > > --
> > > Cheers,
> > >         Carlos E. R.
> >
> > +1
>
> OK, here is description why this could cause problems. From sources :)
> http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/faq.html#grubwork
>
> Q: Does GRUB work with XFS?
>
> There is native XFS filesystem support for GRUB starting with version
> 0.91 and onward. Unfortunately, GRUB used to make incorrect assumptions
> about being able to read a block device image while a filesystem is
> mounted and actively being written to, which could cause intermittent
> problems when using XFS. This has reportedly since been fixed, and the
> 0.97 version (at least) of GRUB is apparently stable.

You always need to write at least the block numbers of filesystem driver to 
stage1 so that you are able to load it.

XFS does not have a space in boot sector for any booting code. This makes 
impossible to have a system with /boot on XFS boot other way than installing 
to an unrelated boot sector (if there is any available partition - really 
don't recommend it) or to MBR (which e.g. removes the ThinkVantage button 
functionality on ThinkPad laptops).

Jiri

-- 
Regards,

Jiri Srain
YaST Team Leader
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