bootloader configuration

8 Sep 2006

      Hi,

I try to configure the bootloader for SUSE 10.1 on a Sunfire X4100 with the 
following disk configuration:

2 SAS drives combined as a mirror via the SAS controller on SCSI id 0
2 other SAS drives on SCSI ids 2 and 3

In my autoyast profile I have the following section:

    <bootloader>
      <activate config:type="boolean">true</activate>
      <global config:type="list">
....
      </global>
      <initrd_modules config:type="list">
        <initrd_module>
          <module>mptsas</module>
        </initrd_module>
        <initrd_module>
          <module>scsi_mod</module>
        </initrd_module>
....
      </initrd_modules>
      <loader_device>/dev/sdc</loader_device>
      <loader_type>grub</loader_type>
      <location>mbr</location>
      <sections config:type="list">
        <section config:type="list">
          <section_entry>
            <key>title</key>
            <value>Linux</value>
          </section_entry>
          <section_entry>
            <key>kernel</key>
            <value>(hd2,4)/vmlinuz root=/dev/sdc7 vga=normal 
console=ttyS0,9600 console=tty0 noresume showopts</value>
          </section_entry>
          <section_entry>
            <key>initrd</key>
            <value>(hd2,4)/initrd</value>
          </section_entry>
        </section>
        <section config:type="list">
          <section_entry>
            <key>title</key>
            <value>Failsafe</value>
          </section_entry>
          <section_entry>
            <key>kernel</key>
            <value>(hd2,4)/vmlinuz root=/dev/sdc7 vga=normal 
console=ttyS0,9600 console=tty0 noresume showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off 
edd=off nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 3</value>
          </section_entry>
          <section_entry>
            <key>initrd</key>
            <value>(hd2,4)/initrd</value>
          </section_entry>
        </section>
      </sections>
    </bootloader>

I want to install everything on the mirror which for whatever reason always 
appears as the last drive, even if it is SCSI id 0. But this seems to be a 
driver or controller issue and I can live with that. In my case the mirror 
is /dev/sdc resp. for grub it's (hd2).

In the BIOS I explicitely set it to boot ONLY from the mirror and don't even 
look on the other drives.

Now what happens is that Yast installs everything fine on the mirror but after 
the reboot the system doesn't come up anymore. The reason is that Yast never 
puts grub into the MBR on the mirror but instead puts it into the MBR of the 
first non-mirrored drive (which doesn't even have a valid partition table). 
This is the y2log_bootloader:

    GNU GRUB  version 0.97  (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)

 [ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported.  For the first word, TAB
   lists possible command completions.  Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
   completions of a device/filename. ]
grub> root (hd2,4)
 Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
grub> install --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 /grub/stage1 d (hd2,4) /grub/stage2 
0x8000 (hd2,4)/grub/menu.lst
grub> install --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 /grub/stage1 d (hd0) /grub/stage2 
0x8000 (hd2,4)/grub/menu.lst
grub> quit

Is that intentional behaviour and how can I get around it? Or is it just 
broken, in which case I can file a bug on bugzilla?

Karsten.
-- 
"The last time somebody said, `I find I can write much better with a
word processor.', I replied, `They used to say the same thing about
drugs.'
		-- Roy Blount, Jr.

bootloader configuration

Karsten Künne