RAID1 + LVM not detected during boot on 2.6.9

RAID1 + LVM not detected during boot on 2.6.9

[Aleksandar Milivojevic]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1283 bytes --]

I've installed one machine (Fedora Core 3 distro) with /boot on  RAID1 
device (md0) and all other filesystems on LVM volumes located on another 
RAID1 device (md1).  There was only one volume group, with couple of 
volumes for file systems (one of them was root file system).

The installation went fine, however when I try to reboot machine, Linux 
kernel is unable to detect LVM volumes, and panics since it can't find 
root file system.  I see messages saying that it is searching for LVM 
volumes, but it dosn't find any.

If I boot into rescue mode from CD (also 2.6.9 kernel), and let Fedora 
installer search for existing installations, all volumes are found and I 
can mount root file system.

At first I suspected that I was missing some modules from initrd image, 
and attempted to recreate it by hand.  However that hasn't worked (I've 
attached mkinitrd -v output).  It seems that all needed modules and 
config files are present in initrd image (SCSI, RAID, DM, and ext3 file 
system).

I do remember having this very same setup working on kernel 2.6.5.

-- 
Aleksandar Milivojevic <amilivojevic@pbl.ca>    Pollard Banknote Limited
Systems Administrator                           1499 Buffalo Place
Tel: (204) 474-2323 ext 276                     Winnipeg, MB  R3T 1L7

[-- Attachment #2: mk.txt --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 2911 bytes --]

Creating initramfs
Looking for deps of module scsi_mod	
Looking for deps of module sd_mod	 scsi_mod
Looking for deps of module scsi_mod	
Looking for deps of module unknown	
Looking for deps of module sym53c8xx	 scsi_transport_spi scsi_mod
Looking for deps of module scsi_transport_spi	 scsi_mod
Looking for deps of module scsi_mod	
Looking for deps of module scsi_mod	
Looking for deps of module ide-disk	
Looking for deps of module dm-mod	
Looking for deps of module raid1	
Looking for deps of module ext3	 jbd
Looking for deps of module jbd	
Looking for deps of module dm-mod	
Looking for deps of module dm-mirror	 dm-mod
Looking for deps of module dm-mod	
Looking for deps of module dm-zero	 dm-mod
Looking for deps of module dm-mod	
Looking for deps of module dm-snapshot	 dm-mod
Looking for deps of module dm-mod	
Using modules:  ./kernel/drivers/scsi/scsi_mod.ko ./kernel/drivers/scsi/sd_mod.ko ./kernel/drivers/scsi/scsi_transport_spi.ko ./kernel/drivers/scsi/sym53c8xx_2/sym53c8xx.ko ./kernel/drivers/md/dm-mod.ko ./kernel/drivers/md/raid1.ko ./kernel/fs/jbd/jbd.ko ./kernel/fs/ext3/ext3.ko ./kernel/drivers/md/dm-mirror.ko ./kernel/drivers/md/dm-zero.ko ./kernel/drivers/md/dm-snapshot.ko
/sbin/nash -> /tmp/initrd.qC1073/bin/nash
/sbin/insmod.static -> /tmp/initrd.qC1073/bin/insmod
/sbin/udev.static -> /tmp/initrd.qC1073/sbin/udev
/etc/udev/udev.conf -> /tmp/initrd.qC1073/etc/udev/udev.conf
`/lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667/./kernel/drivers/scsi/scsi_mod.ko' -> `/tmp/initrd.qC1073/lib/scsi_mod.ko'
`/lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667/./kernel/drivers/scsi/sd_mod.ko' -> `/tmp/initrd.qC1073/lib/sd_mod.ko'
`/lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667/./kernel/drivers/scsi/scsi_transport_spi.ko' -> `/tmp/initrd.qC1073/lib/scsi_transport_spi.ko'
`/lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667/./kernel/drivers/scsi/sym53c8xx_2/sym53c8xx.ko' -> `/tmp/initrd.qC1073/lib/sym53c8xx.ko'
`/lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667/./kernel/drivers/md/dm-mod.ko' -> `/tmp/initrd.qC1073/lib/dm-mod.ko'
`/lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667/./kernel/drivers/md/raid1.ko' -> `/tmp/initrd.qC1073/lib/raid1.ko'
`/lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667/./kernel/fs/jbd/jbd.ko' -> `/tmp/initrd.qC1073/lib/jbd.ko'
`/lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667/./kernel/fs/ext3/ext3.ko' -> `/tmp/initrd.qC1073/lib/ext3.ko'
`/lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667/./kernel/drivers/md/dm-mirror.ko' -> `/tmp/initrd.qC1073/lib/dm-mirror.ko'
`/lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667/./kernel/drivers/md/dm-zero.ko' -> `/tmp/initrd.qC1073/lib/dm-zero.ko'
`/lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667/./kernel/drivers/md/dm-snapshot.ko' -> `/tmp/initrd.qC1073/lib/dm-snapshot.ko'
/sbin/lvm.static -> /tmp/initrd.qC1073/bin/lvm
/etc/lvm -> /tmp/initrd.qC1073/etc/lvm
`/etc/lvm/lvm.conf' -> `/tmp/initrd.qC1073/etc/lvm/lvm.conf'
Loading module scsi_mod
Loading module sd_mod
Loading module scsi_transport_spi
Loading module sym53c8xx
Loading module dm-mod
Loading module raid1
Loading module jbd
Loading module ext3
Loading module dm-mirror
Loading module dm-zero
Loading module dm-snapshot

RE: RAID1 + LVM not detected during boot on 2.6.9

[Stephen Warren]

From: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org 
> I've installed one machine (Fedora Core 3 distro) with /boot 
> on  RAID1 device (md0) and all other filesystems on LVM
> volumes located on another  RAID1 device (md1).  There was
> only one volume group, with couple of volumes for file
> systems (one of them was root file system).

I have this exact same setup, and it's working great.

You do have the correct partition types setup, right? The underlying
RAID partitions should be type 0xfd (Linux raid autodetect). Also, where
are your disks attached - are you really sure that the kernel has
drivers for your host controller in the initrd - perhaps you should edit
the linuxrc (I think) script file to cat the content of some /proc files
to prove that the disks are known to the kernel. Perhaps even add sfdisk
to the initrd, and have it dump out the partition tables etc. at boot
time.

For example, fdisk says this about one of my disks:

SEVERN:~$ sudo fdisk /dev/hdg

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 30515.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): 

Disk /dev/hdg: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdg1   *           1          13      104391   fd  Linux raid
autodetect
/dev/hdg2              14       30226   242685922+  fd  Linux raid
autodetect
/dev/hdg3           30227       30357     1052257+  82  Linux swap

-- 
Stephen Warren, Software Engineer, NVIDIA, Fort Collins, CO
swarren@nvidia.com        http://www.nvidia.com/
swarren@wwwdotorg.org     http://www.wwwdotorg.org/pgp.html