8.1 doens't boot after install with lilo or grub on PERC3 (aacraid) Poweredge
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hello, in the last 2 years I have installed every version of SuSE since 7.1 on various Dell PowerEdge servers using the aacraid and megaraid modules. I just installed 8.1 on a PowerEdge 2450 (PREC3/Si, aacraid module, setup as RAID5 with 2 containers) installation proceded just fine but when I use grub OR lilo (I have tried both) halts right after showing the initrd info and states: Freeing initrd memory: 322k freed VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) Loading module aacraid ... Using /lib/modules/2.4.19-64BG-SMP/kernel/drivers/scsi/aacraid/aacriad.o Red Hat/Adaptect aacraid driver, Sept 13 2002 And then it jus sits there. It's not totally frozen because it still accepts keyboard input, and there's no kernel panic, yet it doens't boot. If we boot off the CD, go to "manual installation", load the aacraid driver, and then choose "bootinstalled system" we are able to boot, however not matter what argumnets I try passing to lilo, I can't get it to boot on it's own. I'm thinking the initrd might be wrong, but I checked it and it's got aacraid, aic7xxx and reiserfs. I recreated it just for grins but that didn't help. Iless there's something screwy with the hardware I can't think what could be wrong, I've done this before on exactly the same hardware in 7.3 and 8.0. Containers were set up by someone else, 0 is 3 GB (sda) and 1 is `about 47 BG or so (sdb). Dell partition utility is primary partition 1 of sda, 55MB swap is pri. part. 2, 1GB boot is pri. part 3 200MB (reiserfs. I have used reiserfs for /boot for 2 years on dozens of installation so I know it works.) another partition of no consequence is pri.part 4 on sda / is sba1, all ~47 GB of it. Since I can boot it with the CD, I'm sure there's a way to set up lilo or grub to make it work, but whatever it is I can't figure it out. Any help would be greatly appreciated.... - -- - ---------------------------------------------------- Jonathan Wilson System Administrator Cedar Creek Software http://www.cedarcreeksoftware.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE9sgE9Q5u80xXOLBcRAm7xAKDM0i/q6Nwf2jfs+WsSeeA+ocbnCgCfZCT0 AVdaDd+SP5nexOPjhum+Pm0= =11cf -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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JW >Hello,
JW >I just installed 8.1 on a PowerEdge 2450 (PREC3/Si, aacraid module, setup as RAID5 with 2 containers) installation proceded just fine but when I use grub OR lilo (I have tried both) halts right after showing
JW >the initrd info and states:
<snip>
Ok, I just did a test: I installed 8.0 into the partitions of container 0 and it boots opn it's own just fine.
So I reinstalled 8.1 again into those exact same partitions (I reformatted them but did not repartition) and it still does not boot, even using the exact same lilo.conf from 8.0 (INITRD_MODULES is the same on both)
So it is most definately a problem with 8.1, kernel or something.
If anyone has a way to work around this problem, I'd sure like to know.
Not trying to start a flame war, so if you don't like rants don't read past here....
Did you try the failsafe boot option? Also, there are three boot kernel parameters to try, read: http://sdb.suse.de/en/sdb/html/81_acpi.html at http://sdb.suse.de/en/sdb/html/SUSE.81.html The most recent kernels are using ACPI more heavily and it may cause booting problems. You could try adding an extra disk (non raid) in your machine where to install the /boot directory. -- Rafael
First od all, could you please limit the line length of future
postings to not more then 75 characters (70 would be even better).
This makes the mails much more readable and also makes quoting much
easier.
JW
After much searching I found on SDB a warning that grub cannot be used with raid systems.
I'm not sure whether this also applies to hardware RAID controllers as these present the RAID array as a SCSI disk and GRUB supports SCSI disks, but I'm no expert on that and I don't have a test setup available that would let me check this.
Personally, I think it was wrong of SuSE to swich to a new bootloader until the bootloader could boot raid.
Sorry, that would have been impossible. GRUB was the boot loader that the United Linux partners agreed on. So we switched to GRUB by default for those setups that GRUB can handle.
1. YaST2 _could_ have been smart enough to tell me "hey, you're using raid, don't use grub"
AFAIR, YaST2 should have done that. I have to check though if my memory serves correctly. Will check that tomorrow.
2. "Don't use this on a raid system" should have been printed in big, bold letters on the box.
On the SuSE Linux box? Sorry, but that won't happen.
3. We called SuSE yesterday and ordered 8.1 next day air for a server (and told them so). The salesperson could and _should_ have asked us if it was a raid system and told us not to bother.
Why should he? Sales people don't automatically know all pitfalls.
broken kernel modules
The kernel module can't be broken as you've manually loaded it and it worked. The error must be somewhere else.
missing yast1
You haven't tested the text mode YaST2, have you? It was usable in 8.0 and it got *much* better in 8.1.
there was no _need_ to switch to GRUB until GRUB works properly
Then we would probably have had to wait forever and it was agreed upon to use GRUB by default. One of GRUBS strengths and also its weakness is, that it reads the filesystem and thus doesn't need to remember the exact position of the kernel and the initrd on the disk like LILO. That's why you do not need to run GRUB when the kernel or the initrd change. But that also means that GRUB has to have support for reading filesystems built into it, including support for things like LVM or software raid.
Broken bootloaders
GRUB isn't broken per se, it just doesn't support all setups.
and aacraid modules are NOT fun.
As I wrote, if they work when loaded manually they aren't broken. Philipp -- Philipp Thomas work: pthomas@suse.de Development SuSE Linux AG private: pth@t-link.de
Hi Jonathan, * JW (jw@centraltexasit.com) [20021020 06:06]:
Ok, I just did a test: I installed 8.0 into the partitions of container 0 and it boots opn it's own just fine. So I reinstalled 8.1 again into those exact same partitions (I reformatted them but did not repartition) and it still does not boot, even using the exact same lilo.conf from 8.0 (INITRD_MODULES is the same on both) So it is most definately a problem with 8.1, kernel or something.
I just confirmed that GRUB can't be used when /boot resides on a RAID array,
be it software or harware RAID. But YaST2 is supposed to detect that
situation and use LILO. So you possibly have run into a bug in 8.1 and I
would therefore ask you to supply a detailed bug report to
http://www.suse.de/cgi-bin/feedback.cgi. Alternatively you can send me that
bug report (but I'd prefer the above URL).
Philipp
--
Philipp Thomas
Hi all, maybe there's another problem there. I have a call open with SuSe because my Adaptec 7890 freezes the machine. This is new in kernel 2.4. Could also be the issue and I'd naturally be intersted in any comments on that. Regrds Dan Am Sonntag, 20. Oktober 2002 03:05 schrieb JW:
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Hello,
in the last 2 years I have installed every version of SuSE since 7.1 on various Dell PowerEdge servers using the aacraid and megaraid modules.
I just installed 8.1 on a PowerEdge 2450 (PREC3/Si, aacraid module, setup as RAID5 with 2 containers) installation proceded just fine but when I use grub OR lilo (I have tried both) halts right after showing the initrd info and states:
Freeing initrd memory: 322k freed VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) Loading module aacraid ... Using /lib/modules/2.4.19-64BG-SMP/kernel/drivers/scsi/aacraid/aacriad.o Red Hat/Adaptect aacraid driver, Sept 13 2002
And then it jus sits there. It's not totally frozen because it still accepts keyboard input, and there's no kernel panic, yet it doens't boot.
If we boot off the CD, go to "manual installation", load the aacraid driver, and then choose "bootinstalled system" we are able to boot, however not matter what argumnets I try passing to lilo, I can't get it to boot on it's own. I'm thinking the initrd might be wrong, but I checked it and it's got aacraid, aic7xxx and reiserfs. I recreated it just for grins but that didn't help. Iless there's something screwy with the hardware I can't think what could be wrong, I've done this before on exactly the same hardware in 7.3 and 8.0.
Containers were set up by someone else, 0 is 3 GB (sda) and 1 is `about 47 BG or so (sdb). Dell partition utility is primary partition 1 of sda, 55MB swap is pri. part. 2, 1GB boot is pri. part 3 200MB (reiserfs. I have used reiserfs for /boot for 2 years on dozens of installation so I know it works.) another partition of no consequence is pri.part 4 on sda
/ is sba1, all ~47 GB of it.
Since I can boot it with the CD, I'm sure there's a way to set up lilo or grub to make it work, but whatever it is I can't figure it out.
Any help would be greatly appreciated....
- --
- ---------------------------------------------------- Jonathan Wilson System Administrator Cedar Creek Software http://www.cedarcreeksoftware.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org
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participants (5)
-
Dan Am -
JW -
Philipp Thomas -
Philipp Thomas -
Rafael E. Herrera