Steve, Martin,
Thanks for writing. I'm going to answer your requests, and please keep
those questions coming.
Steve asks:
Are you running udev on /dev?
No, I haven't made the transition yet. I'm still running devfs.
What was the last version of mdadm you had installed that worked?
That'd be whatever the previous release was under unstable. I just did
"dist-upgrade" last night and picked up this latest release. I didn't pay
attention to previous release info, and I can't find any log files that
track the apt-get progress.
You mention initrd-tools -- is your root fs on RAID? If so, which device is
it? Did you also upgrade initrd-tools and mdadm at the same time?
My root fs is on RAID, /dev/md/1. I noticed last night when I did the
update that I'd picked up initrd-tools, mdadm, and a new kernel all at once
-- again, up from the previous versions of unstable.
As for Martin's questions:
could you please give us the complete output of
ls -l /dev/md*
the complete output is hundreds of lines long, but there's what I see in part:
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 4 May 23 00:51 /dev/md0 -> md/0
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 4 May 23 00:51 /dev/md1 -> md/1
etc. all the way to 255, then:
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 5 May 23 00:51 /dev/md99 -> md/99
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 7 May 23 00:51 /dev/mdmdp0 -> md/mdp0
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 7 May 23 00:51 /dev/mdmdp1 -> md/mdp1
etc. until
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 8 May 23 00:51 /dev/mdmdp98 -> md/mdp98
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 8 May 23 00:51 /dev/mdmdp99 -> md/mdp99
Then comes the real devices:
/dev/md:
total 0
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 9, 0 Dec 31 1969 0
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 9, 1 Dec 31 1969 1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 9, 10 Dec 31 1969 10
etc. until 256, then
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 0 Dec 31 1969 mdp0
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 64 Dec 31 1969 mdp1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 128 Dec 31 1969 mdp10
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 0 Dec 31 1969 mdp100
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 64 Dec 31 1969 mdp101
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 128 Dec 31 1969 mdp102
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 192 Dec 31 1969 mdp103
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 0 Dec 31 1969 mdp104
until
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 64 Dec 31 1969 mdp97
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 128 Dec 31 1969 mdp98
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 254, 192 Dec 31 1969 mdp99
I haven't the foggiest notion of what the mdp[0-9]+ devices are.
Also note that the initrd uses /devfs/md/3, not /dev/md/3.
I'm not certain what you mean. initrd.img has the following entry in its
/script file (last two lines):
ROOT=/dev/md1
mdadm -A /dev/md/1 -R -u 5842a331:676c7ce4:06417154:50dffb65
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1
and while it has a devfs directory, it's empty, but it has a /dev directory
that contains /dev/md/1 and /dev/md/2. I am far from an expert of booting;
I only study it when things go wrong.
Please provide more information about the exact errors and when they
happen during the boot stage. You may find `dmesg` useful, and
enabling bootlogd in /etc/default/bootlogd.
Unfortunately, I didn't have bootlogd enabled when I generated these
errors. /var/log/messages gave me these messages:
May 22 22:33:24 bagpipes kernel: devfs_mk_dev: could not append to parent
for md/3
May 22 22:33:24 bagpipes kernel: ReiserFS: md3: warning: sh-2006:
read_super_block: bread failed (dev md3, block 2, size 4096)
May 22 22:33:24 bagpipes kernel: ReiserFS: md3: warning: sh-2006:
read_super_block: bread failed (dev md3, block 16, size 4096)
May 22 22:33:24 bagpipes kernel: ReiserFS: md3: warning: sh-2021:
reiserfs_fill_super: can not find reiserfs on md3
but that just tells me that /dev/md3 didn't start.
I also recall seeing this trio of messages. From memory,
/dev/md1 is not a block device
/dev/md2 is not a block device
/dev/md3 is not a block device
I'd hate to go back to the error version, but if you really need me to, I
can reproduce this failure with bootlogd turned on.
Does initrd fail to start the device? Or does it fail to start
afterwards?
I really can't tell. The device didn't start, and the reason I did what I
did to fix the problem is because I suspected that the md device didn't start.
The reason I suspected it is because if mdadm.conf has /dev/md3 as the
device in its ARRAY statement, and I use the notation "mdadm --assemble
/dev/md/3", then mdadm wouldn't start. It couldn't translate between the
two. Since /script in initrd.img had this notation, I thought that if I
moved everything to /dev/md/n style notation, I'd be able to boot -- and I
could.
What is /dev/md3?
Physically, it's /dev/hda3 and /dev/sda3 (yes, a SATA and an IDE drive,
call me crazy). It's my /home directories.
Again, thank you both for your response, and I will try and provide any
other information you need.
Regards,
Moshe
--
Moshe Yudkowsky
Disaggregate
2952 W Fargo
Chicago, IL 60645 USA
www.Disaggregate.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
+1 773 764 8727
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