At boot, I was prompted with a BIOS message saying that there was no boot device.
No, a BIOS upgrade doesn't modify fstab. I believe that EFI has anti-tampering mechanisms that might have been triggered by the BIOS upgrade. (At least it's currently my best guess. It is in line with the fact that a clean install after this BIOS upgrade has no problem.) If you think of Debian installer rescue mode as a command promt, then I agree that it won't change fstab by itself. However, Debian's installer rescue mode does indeed contain functionality that can modify fstab for you: When entering rescue mode, you are prompted to "Select the partitions to assemble into a RAID array. If you select 'Automatic', then all devices containing RAID physical volumes will be scanned and assembled. Note that a RAID partition at the end of a disk may sometimes cause that disk to be mistakenly detected as containing a RAID physical volume. In that case, you should select the appropriate partitions individually." Here I have selected "Automatic" and in the subsequent screens I have chosen to mount /boot/efi and selected /dev/md0 as root partition. I don't remember what I did after this, but I think that the ensuing option to write new grub failed which caused me to try other ways. Either way, at least the menu option for graphical rescue mode lets you navigate to a listing of possible operations that correspond to the regular installation sequence. One of these operations is partitioning. Manual partitioning presents a correct listing of my RAID volumes, although as "do not use" (and hence without a mount point). When assigning and writing "ext4" and mount point / for /dev/md0, swap for /dev/md1, and "ext4" /storage for /dev/md2 I could finally write new grub. I suspect that it is this step that somehow transmogrified my single-partition /dev/md2 (up to this point referred to as /dev/md2) into a /dev/md2 RAID gpt volume with a partition now referred to as /dev/md2p1. The output from fdisk -l and parted -l: fdisk -l: Disk /dev/sdc: 3.7 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 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 Disklabel type: gpt Disk identifier: B2E029B3-65EE-44F8-9EE6-A363E25AA8D0 Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/sdc1 2048 391167 389120 190M Microsoft basic data /dev/sdc2 391168 78516223 78125056 37.3G Linux RAID /dev/sdc3 78516224 7814035455 7735519232 3.6T Linux RAID Disk /dev/sdf: 3.7 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 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 Disklabel type: gpt Disk identifier: 8D67E618-9BF8-45F5-91F9-1B41779274D6 Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/sdf1 2048 391167 389120 190M Microsoft basic data /dev/sdf2 391168 78516223 78125056 37.3G Linux RAID /dev/sdf3 78516224 7814035455 7735519232 3.6T Linux RAID Disk /dev/sde: 3.7 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 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 Disklabel type: gpt Disk identifier: 66151BB0-196C-49F4-AF7A-594FE4BF98AF Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/sde1 2048 391167 389120 190M Microsoft basic data /dev/sde2 391168 78516223 78125056 37.3G Linux RAID /dev/sde3 78516224 7814035455 7735519232 3.6T Linux RAID Disk /dev/sdd: 3.7 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 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 Disklabel type: gpt Disk identifier: B532E854-8DFE-4DCD-B887-BC3FD13F8755 Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/sdd1 2048 391167 389120 190M Microsoft basic data /dev/sdd2 391168 78516223 78125056 37.3G Linux RAID /dev/sdd3 78516224 7814035455 7735519232 3.6T Linux RAID Disk /dev/sdb: 3.7 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 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 Disklabel type: gpt Disk identifier: 5910E337-8CDD-4DD2-9457-084A617CA599 Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/sdb1 2048 391167 389120 190M EFI System /dev/sdb2 391168 78516223 78125056 37.3G Linux RAID /dev/sdb3 78516224 7814035455 7735519232 3.6T Linux RAID Disk /dev/sda: 3.7 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 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 Disklabel type: gpt Disk identifier: 39F8743A-E279-4DF2-9775-4ABF3742E013 Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/sda1 2048 391167 389120 190M EFI System /dev/sda2 391168 78516223 78125056 37.3G Linux RAID /dev/sda3 78516224 7814035455 7735519232 3.6T Linux RAID Disk /dev/md1: 37.2 GiB, 39966474240 bytes, 78059520 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 /dev/md0: 37.2 GiB, 39966474240 bytes, 78059520 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 /dev/md2: 18 TiB, 19802258145280 bytes, 38676285440 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 524288 bytes / 2621440 bytes Disklabel type: gpt Disk identifier: 41440B8B-C8DC-489C-9F03-E85D8D309302 Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/md2p1 2048 38676283391 38676281344 18T Linux filesystem Disk /dev/sdg: 7.2 GiB, 7761035264 bytes, 15158272 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x3e847943 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sdg1 * 0 7743263 7743264 3.7G 0 Empty /dev/sdg2 21468 22299 832 416K ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32) --- parted -l: Model: ATA HGST HDN724040AL (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 4001GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: gpt Disk Flags: Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 1049kB 200MB 199MB fat32 boot, esp 2 200MB 40.2GB 40.0GB raid 3 40.2GB 4001GB 3961GB raid Model: ATA HGST HDN724040AL (scsi) Disk /dev/sdb: 4001GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: gpt Disk Flags: Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 1049kB 200MB 199MB fat32 boot, esp 2 200MB 40.2GB 40.0GB raid 3 40.2GB 4001GB 3961GB raid Model: ATA HGST HDN724040AL (scsi) Disk /dev/sdc: 4001GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: gpt Disk Flags: Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 1049kB 200MB 199MB fat16 msftdata 2 200MB 40.2GB 40.0GB raid 3 40.2GB 4001GB 3961GB raid Model: ATA HGST HDN724040AL (scsi) Disk /dev/sdd: 4001GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: gpt Disk Flags: Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 1049kB 200MB 199MB fat16 msftdata 2 200MB 40.2GB 40.0GB raid 3 40.2GB 4001GB 3961GB raid Model: ATA HGST HDN724040AL (scsi) Disk /dev/sde: 4001GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: gpt Disk Flags: Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 1049kB 200MB 199MB fat16 msftdata 2 200MB 40.2GB 40.0GB raid 3 40.2GB 4001GB 3961GB raid Model: ATA HGST HDN724040AL (scsi) Disk /dev/sdf: 4001GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: gpt Disk Flags: Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 1049kB 200MB 199MB fat16 msftdata 2 200MB 40.2GB 40.0GB raid 3 40.2GB 4001GB 3961GB raid Model: Linux Software RAID Array (md) Disk /dev/md2: 19.8TB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: gpt Disk Flags: Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 1049kB 19.8TB 19.8TB ext4 Model: Linux Software RAID Array (md) Disk /dev/md0: 40.0GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: loop Disk Flags: Number Start End Size File system Flags 1 0.00B 40.0GB 40.0GB ext4 Warning: The driver descriptor says the physical block size is 2048 bytes, but Linux says it is 512 bytes. Ignore/Cancel? I Model: SanDisk Cruzer Blade (scsi) Disk /dev/sdg: 31.0GB Sector size (logical/physical): 2048B/512B Partition Table: mac Disk Flags: Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 2048B 6143B 4096B Apple 2 11.0MB 11.4MB 426kB EFI Model: Linux Software RAID Array (md) Disk /dev/md1: 40.0GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: loop Disk Flags: Number Start End Size File system Flags 1 0.00B 40.0GB 40.0GB linux-swap(v1) ________________________________ From: Pascal Hambourg <pas...@plouf.fr.eu.org> Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 9:15 AM To: debian-user@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: Auto-assembled SW RAID in rescue mode Le 10/05/2018 à 23:30, Niclas Arndt a écrit : > > I received unofficial BIOS files from Gigabyte with new versions of Intel ME > and CPU microcode. After upgrade, several Stretch machines no longer boot. > (Fresh installation works without any problem.) What happened at boot time ? I doubt that all you describe below is related to a motherboard firmware upgrade. > I booted from USB in rescue mode, did auto-assembly of RAID arrays, mounted > /boot/efi and rewrote grub. > > This made it possible to boot, but /dev/md2 was removed from fstab. I also > for the first time noticed that there is an additional /dev/md2p1 entry when > running blkid (although not in fstab). Neither a BIOS upgrade nor Debian installer's rescue mode modify fstab. > Now /dev/md2 has a PTUUID of PTTYPE="gpt" and > > /dev/md2p1 has a UUID of TYPE="ext4" with a PARTUUID. It seems to indicate that the RAID array /dev/md2 has a GPT partition table defining a partition md2p1 containing an ext4 filesystem. This is not the usual setup, but software RAID has supported partitioned arrays for a long time. Can you post the output of "fdisk -l" or "parted -l" ? > Manual mount of /dev/md2 works, but the machine won't boot if I add an fstab > entry with the /dev/md2 PTUUID. With the /dev/md2p1 UUID in fstab it is > mounted at startup and the machine boots. It is extremely surprising that mounting /dev/md2 works because according to the above, /dev/md2 contains a partition table, not a filesystem. Also, the filesystem should be identified in fstab with its UUID or label because a RAID device name is not stable. > mdadm refers to the volume as /dev/md2. (I don't use lvm.) mdadm manages only RAID arrays, not partitions inside an array. It just marks the array as partitioned and the kernel handles the partition table as it does with any other partitioned block device.
