Ubuntu Jaunty ext3 --> ext4 upgrade issue

Ubuntu Jaunty ext3 --> ext4 upgrade issue

[Tim Gardner]

Ted,

I've encountered a situation where the patches that you've proposed for
stable updates might be causing some issues. This user ivoks appears to
have an upgrade issue. I assume he's enabled ext4 on an existing ext3
file system. Hopefully I can get more details. Have you seen anything
like this?

After looking at your for-stable branch, I think I'm missing a couple of
jbd2 patches. Could they be significant?

rtg

<ivoks> i'm getting 'Invalid or unsupported executable format' from grub
on all jaunty's generic kernels since (including) 2.6.28-7
<rtg> ivoks: you must have HW issues. Surely lots of folks would have
been howling by now.
<ivoks> could be... but -6 works :/
<ivoks> even after reinstall of all kernels
<rtg> have you fsck'd ?
<ivoks> could try that...
 it's ext4
<rtg> ivoks: is it an ext4 upgrade, or was it install time formatted ?
<ivoks> upgrade
<rtg> hmm, there were a bunch of ext4 changes that went into -7.18
<ivoks> right, i've noticed that
<rtg> ivoks: any change you could build a kernel with all of those
patches reverted? I expected them via stable updates by now, but perhaps
Ted has been finding issues with them.
<ivoks> i could try...
<rtg> ivoks: they are all labeled 'SAUCE: (revert before 2.6.28.y
update) ext4:'
<ivoks> thanks
<ivoks> only 21 commits :)
<ivoks> is it possible to build i386 kernel on amd64?
<rtg> ivoks: you have to chroot the build.
<ivoks> oh, right!
<ivoks> rtg: so, reverting all ext4 commits since -6 did the trick
<rtg> ivoks: can you file a bug with the specifics, and your results
that I can pass on to Ted ?
<ivoks> yes, but later... i have to rush now :/
 take care
-- 
Tim Gardner tim.gardner@canonical.com

Re: Ubuntu Jaunty ext3 --> ext4 upgrade issue

[Peter Zijlstra]

On Wed, 2009-02-18 at 11:10 -0700, Tim Gardner wrote:
> Ted,
> 
> I've encountered a situation where the patches that you've proposed for
> stable updates might be causing some issues. This user ivoks appears to
> have an upgrade issue. I assume he's enabled ext4 on an existing ext3
> file system. Hopefully I can get more details. Have you seen anything
> like this?
> 
> After looking at your for-stable branch, I think I'm missing a couple of
> jbd2 patches. Could they be significant?
> 
> rtg
> 
> <ivoks> i'm getting 'Invalid or unsupported executable format' from grub
> on all jaunty's generic kernels since (including) 2.6.28-7

Does your grub have ext4 support? Otherwise I would suggest not
converting /boot (or whatever other partition is used to load the kernel
from).

Re: Ubuntu Jaunty ext3 --> ext4 upgrade issue

[Tim Gardner]

Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-02-18 at 11:10 -0700, Tim Gardner wrote:
>> Ted,
>>
>> I've encountered a situation where the patches that you've proposed for
>> stable updates might be causing some issues. This user ivoks appears to
>> have an upgrade issue. I assume he's enabled ext4 on an existing ext3
>> file system. Hopefully I can get more details. Have you seen anything
>> like this?
>>
>> After looking at your for-stable branch, I think I'm missing a couple of
>> jbd2 patches. Could they be significant?
>>
>> rtg
>>
>> <ivoks> i'm getting 'Invalid or unsupported executable format' from grub
>> on all jaunty's generic kernels since (including) 2.6.28-7
> 
> Does your grub have ext4 support? Otherwise I would suggest not
> converting /boot (or whatever other partition is used to load the kernel
> from).
> 

Yep - Colin King implemented support for ext4 in grub 0.97.

rtg
-- 
Tim Gardner tim.gardner@canonical.com

Re: Ubuntu Jaunty ext3 --> ext4 upgrade issue

[Theodore Tso]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:10:38AM -0700, Tim Gardner wrote:
> I've encountered a situation where the patches that you've proposed for
> stable updates might be causing some issues. This user ivoks appears to
> have an upgrade issue. I assume he's enabled ext4 on an existing ext3
> file system. Hopefully I can get more details. Have you seen anything
> like this?

No, this is the first I've heard of it. 

> <ivoks> i'm getting 'Invalid or unsupported executable format' from grub
> on all jaunty's generic kernels since (including) 2.6.28-7

So grub is complaining that it can't boot from a partition after
upgrading to the new kernel with the for-stable patches?  Um, that's
interesting.  So the obvious thing to check is to do an md5 checksum
of the kernel in /boot to make sure it didn't get corrupted somehow.
The other thing to check would be to ask the user to run e2fsck to
rule out filesystem corruption.

OTOH, if this was just a simple install and upgrade, presumably the
new kernel would have been installed while the previous kernel was
booted.

I do my testing by using a ext3 /boot partition (since my
crash-and-burn netbook is running Ubuntu Jaunty).  So I wouldn't have
noticed anything, but this seems very odd.

More information would be useful; is there a Launchpad bug open on this yet?

Or we can work this out on LKML or the linux-ext4 mailing list if the
reporter is willing to be cc'ed on the thread....

     		       	  	     	   - Ted

Re: Ubuntu Jaunty ext3 --> ext4 upgrade issue

[Marvin]

Hi Tim,

Am Mittwoch 18 Februar 2009 19:10:38 schrieb Tim Gardner:
> Ted,
>
> I've encountered a situation where the patches that you've proposed for
> stable updates might be causing some issues. This user ivoks appears to
> have an upgrade issue. I assume he's enabled ext4 on an existing ext3
> file system. Hopefully I can get more details. Have you seen anything
> like this?

I had a similar issue with intrepid. To be able to boot from the ext4 fs, I 
installed grub2 from jaunty. The error went away after compiling grub2 from 
source and coping only the ext2.mod to the grub dir. So there must be some 
later updates missing. I guess this is some fallout from 2.6.27/TESTFS or 
similar.

Marvin

> After looking at your for-stable branch, I think I'm missing a couple of
> jbd2 patches. Could they be significant?
>
> rtg
>
> <ivoks> i'm getting 'Invalid or unsupported executable format' from grub
> on all jaunty's generic kernels since (including) 2.6.28-7
> <rtg> ivoks: you must have HW issues. Surely lots of folks would have
> been howling by now.
> <ivoks> could be... but -6 works :/
> <ivoks> even after reinstall of all kernels
> <rtg> have you fsck'd ?
> <ivoks> could try that...
>  it's ext4
> <rtg> ivoks: is it an ext4 upgrade, or was it install time formatted ?
> <ivoks> upgrade
> <rtg> hmm, there were a bunch of ext4 changes that went into -7.18
> <ivoks> right, i've noticed that
> <rtg> ivoks: any change you could build a kernel with all of those
> patches reverted? I expected them via stable updates by now, but perhaps
> Ted has been finding issues with them.
> <ivoks> i could try...
> <rtg> ivoks: they are all labeled 'SAUCE: (revert before 2.6.28.y
> update) ext4:'
> <ivoks> thanks
> <ivoks> only 21 commits :)
> <ivoks> is it possible to build i386 kernel on amd64?
> <rtg> ivoks: you have to chroot the build.
> <ivoks> oh, right!
> <ivoks> rtg: so, reverting all ext4 commits since -6 did the trick
> <rtg> ivoks: can you file a bug with the specifics, and your results
> that I can pass on to Ted ?
> <ivoks> yes, but later... i have to rush now :/
>  take care

Re: Ubuntu Jaunty ext3 --> ext4 upgrade issue

[Tim Gardner]

Theodore Tso wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:10:38AM -0700, Tim Gardner wrote:
>> I've encountered a situation where the patches that you've proposed for
>> stable updates might be causing some issues. This user ivoks appears to
>> have an upgrade issue. I assume he's enabled ext4 on an existing ext3
>> file system. Hopefully I can get more details. Have you seen anything
>> like this?
> 
> No, this is the first I've heard of it. 
> 
>> <ivoks> i'm getting 'Invalid or unsupported executable format' from grub
>> on all jaunty's generic kernels since (including) 2.6.28-7
> 
> So grub is complaining that it can't boot from a partition after
> upgrading to the new kernel with the for-stable patches?  Um, that's
> interesting.  So the obvious thing to check is to do an md5 checksum
> of the kernel in /boot to make sure it didn't get corrupted somehow.
> The other thing to check would be to ask the user to run e2fsck to
> rule out filesystem corruption.
> 
> OTOH, if this was just a simple install and upgrade, presumably the
> new kernel would have been installed while the previous kernel was
> booted.
> 
> I do my testing by using a ext3 /boot partition (since my
> crash-and-burn netbook is running Ubuntu Jaunty).  So I wouldn't have
> noticed anything, but this seems very odd.
> 
> More information would be useful; is there a Launchpad bug open on this yet?
> 
> Or we can work this out on LKML or the linux-ext4 mailing list if the
> reporter is willing to be cc'ed on the thread....
> 
>      		       	  	     	   - Ted
> 

Here is the initial report:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/331558

I'll produce a test kernel for the user that has _all_ of the proposed
stable patches from your ext4/for-stable branch (including the jbd2 stuff).

rtg
-- 
Tim Gardner tim.gardner@canonical.com

Re: Ubuntu Jaunty ext3 --> ext4 upgrade issue

[Tim Gardner]

Theodore Tso wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:10:38AM -0700, Tim Gardner wrote:
>> I've encountered a situation where the patches that you've proposed for
>> stable updates might be causing some issues. This user ivoks appears to
>> have an upgrade issue. I assume he's enabled ext4 on an existing ext3
>> file system. Hopefully I can get more details. Have you seen anything
>> like this?
> 
> No, this is the first I've heard of it. 
> 
>> <ivoks> i'm getting 'Invalid or unsupported executable format' from grub
>> on all jaunty's generic kernels since (including) 2.6.28-7
> 
> So grub is complaining that it can't boot from a partition after
> upgrading to the new kernel with the for-stable patches?  Um, that's
> interesting.  So the obvious thing to check is to do an md5 checksum
> of the kernel in /boot to make sure it didn't get corrupted somehow.
> The other thing to check would be to ask the user to run e2fsck to
> rule out filesystem corruption.
> 
> OTOH, if this was just a simple install and upgrade, presumably the
> new kernel would have been installed while the previous kernel was
> booted.
> 
> I do my testing by using a ext3 /boot partition (since my
> crash-and-burn netbook is running Ubuntu Jaunty).  So I wouldn't have
> noticed anything, but this seems very odd.
> 
> More information would be useful; is there a Launchpad bug open on this yet?
> 
> Or we can work this out on LKML or the linux-ext4 mailing list if the
> reporter is willing to be cc'ed on the thread....
> 
>      		       	  	     	   - Ted
> 

False alarm. It turned out to be a grub issue, though I'm not sure how
the user got to that point without having also upgraded grub.

rtg
-- 
Tim Gardner tim.gardner@canonical.com