On Mon, 2012-02-13 at 14:27 +0100, Hans Witvliet wrote:

I wanted to turn a machine into a nfs server, zo i bought some 3TB disks. However, i was told that there seems to be a machical boundry at 2TB, which is alleged to be solved by grub2. As SuSE isn't capable of doing that directly from YaST (at least in 12.1) i decided to put it on hold.

Definining a small primary partition such as /boot as the first partition of the disk doesn't work? Personally, I consider this good practice anyway as even if your damage your 'live' partition /boot is likely unscathed.

But here: http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/D213A024C090CE9F862577D5... They write that specially patched verions on grub-legacy can do the trick also.

-- System & Network Administrator [ LPI & NCLA ] http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com OpenGroupware Developer http://www.opengroupware.us Adam Tauno Williams -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, 2012-02-13 at 15:02 +0100, Lars Müller wrote:

On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 02:27:27PM +0100, Hans Witvliet wrote:

...

I wanted to turn a machine into a nfs server, zo i bought some 3TB disks. However, i was told that there seems to be a machical boundry at 2TB, which is alleged to be solved by grub2.

Lilo works. elilo might be an alternative too.

...

As SuSE isn't capable of doing that directly from YaST (at least in 12.1) i decided to put it on hold.

But here: http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/D213A024C090CE9F862577D5...

They write that specially patched verions on grub-legacy can do the trick also.

I guess they talk about http://en.openSUSE.org/SDB:Installing_on_LARGE_disks You better file a feature request to get this included or at least to get the feedback why not.

...

So question is, does anybody knows if grub included on 12.1 has that particular patch?

grub as part of openSUSE 12.1 has the first smaller part of this chnage set available from the openSUSE wiki.

Lars

Ok Lars, just did it. It is indeed the large disk feature. Eventhough the mentioned pathes are from 2005, it is becoming more relevant now, since 3TB disk are commonly found. Perhaps (i sincerely hope so) it is just a documentation feature.. Your feature has been created with id 313224. Regarding what tauno wrote: "Definining a small primary partition such as /boot as the first partition" I allways do so, but is not relevant to this feature. Point is, with disks/raids this large, you have a problem with making such a partition tabel (block numbers must use 64bit instead of 32-bit numbers) Heance either the patch, or grub2 hw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 10:35 AM, James Knott wrote:

Greg Freemyer wrote:

...

...

Definining a small primary partition such as /boot as the first

...

 partition of the disk doesn't work?  Personally, I consider this good  practice anyway as even if your damage your 'live' partition /boot is  likely unscathed.

Adam,

That workaround is not sufficient.

What happens if RAID or LVM is used?  A few months ago, I built a system with 4 1TB drives in a RAID5 array with LVM on top.

If the user wants to "partition" their 3TB drive, then a GPT partition table is required and RAID / LVM doesn't help. The other option is to leave the 3TB drive unpartitioned. Can opensuse use a unpartitioned 3TB drive as a PV for LVM, then boot from one of the LVs with no physical partitions at all? I don't know, I always partition my drives. Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Greg Freemyer wrote:

The other option is to leave the 3TB drive unpartitioned.

Can opensuse use a unpartitioned 3TB drive as a PV for LVM, then boot from one of the LVs with no physical partitions at all? I don't know, I always partition my drives.

I don't know about the boot issues but I wouldn't recommend using an unpartitioned drive for LVM. It's all too easy to run a command that assumes some other structure at the beginning of the disk (MBR etc or whatever) and overwrite the LVM metadata. It's recoverable, of course, but is an unwanted and unnecessary pain. IIRC, using a raw disk is also officially deprecated. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 11:12 AM, James Knott wrote:

I thought the OP mentioned "drives", not a single drive.  If so, then RAID is a possibility, with LVM on the RAID array.

The OP said 3TB drives. As long as 3TB physical drives are involved, you have to address the GPT issue(s). The current Windows solution I believe is to only support GPT on data drives, not boot drives. I believe opensuse supports that relatively easily as well. It is when you want to boot off of 3TB drives you have problems. Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 02/13/2012 08:18 AM, Greg Freemyer wrote:

On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 11:12 AM, James Knott wrote:

...

I thought the OP mentioned "drives", not a single drive. If so, then RAID is a possibility, with LVM on the RAID array. The OP said 3TB drives. As long as 3TB physical drives are involved, you have to address the GPT issue(s).

The current Windows solution I believe is to only support GPT on data drives, not boot drives. I believe opensuse supports that relatively easily as well.

It is when you want to boot off of 3TB drives you have problems.

Here's my recent experience. I established a new account with a hosting provider that included a single 3-TB disk option. While I usually install openSuSE via KVM over IP, in this case the technicians on-site made the 12.1 install for me. The install went well, or so they thought, until first boot. I asked them to partition the drive thusly. I forgot about the big-disk issue. GNU Parted 2.4 Using /dev/sda Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands. (parted) p Model: ATA WDC WD30EZRS-00J (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 3001GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: gpt_sync_mbr Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 1049kB 206MB 204MB ext2 primary boot 2 206MB 312MB 107MB ext2 primary 3 312MB 11.0GB 10.7GB linux-swap(v1) primary 4 11.0GB 54.0GB 43.0GB xfs primary 5 54.0GB 97.0GB 43.0GB xfs primary 6 97.0GB 3001GB 2904GB xfs primary (I like to have two boot and root partitions to allow easy upgrades) Note that fdisk reports: Disk /dev/sda: 3000.6 GB, 3000592982016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 364801 cylinders, total 5860533168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 2048 401407 199680 83 Linux /dev/sda2 401408 610303 104448 83 Linux /dev/sda3 610304 21575679 10482688 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda4 1 1 0+ ee GPT Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary. Partition table entries are not in disk order Since I don't have physical access to the box the guys at the NOC worked on the issue. I gave them a link showing how to patch old-grub to support large disks, but they didn't need it. One of the guys discovered that the motherboard allows selection of EFT as a BIOS boot option. Enabling that one mobo option allowed the box to boot. I don't know how this will affect my next upgrade, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Regards, Lew -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Hans Witvliet wrote:

I allways do so, but is not relevant to this feature. Point is, with disks/raids this large, you have a problem with making such a partition tabel (block numbers must use 64bit instead of 32-bit numbers)

Heance either the patch, or grub2

Or lilo. (works well, I tested it in Dec2010). -- Per Jessen, Zürich (-4.6°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, 2012-02-13 at 19:23 +0100, Per Jessen wrote:

Greg Freemyer wrote:

...

On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 9:45 AM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:

...

On Mon, 2012-02-13 at 14:27 +0100, Hans Witvliet wrote:

...

I wanted to turn a machine into a nfs server, zo i bought some 3TB disks. However, i was told that there seems to be a machical boundry at 2TB, which is alleged to be solved by grub2. As SuSE isn't capable of doing that directly from YaST (at least in 12.1) i decided to put it on hold.

Definining a small primary partition such as /boot as the first partition of the disk doesn't work? Personally, I consider this good practice anyway as even if your damage your 'live' partition /boot is likely unscathed.

Adam,

That workaround is not sufficient.

First the basic problem:

- greater than 2TB disks require GPT partitioning to access the full disk - Booting from GPT disk requires patched grub

- Initrd needs a GPT patch (at least per the wiki page)

I tested booting from 3TB disk with GPT+lilo in Dec2010, no patch needed.

Ok, will give it a try, next week Tnx -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2/13/2012 8:27 AM, Hans Witvliet wrote:

hi all,

I wanted to turn a machine into a nfs server, zo i bought some 3TB disks. However, i was told that there seems to be a machical boundry at 2TB, which is alleged to be solved by grub2.

As SuSE isn't capable of doing that directly from YaST (at least in 12.1) i decided to put it on hold.

But here: http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/D213A024C090CE9F862577D5...

They write that specially patched verions on grub-legacy can do the trick also.

So question is, does anybody knows if grub included on 12.1 has that particular patch?

Kind regards, hans

Boot from a usb thumb drive instead of from the disk. You can use a disk that large as a filesystem just fine as long as you aren't trying to boot from it. They have stubby little usb drives now that don't stick out further than all the cable plugs and aren't a special risk of breaking off from cables pulling, elbows, chair legs etc. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org