Still more data. I put an exit into the autoinstall script right after
it creates the partitions. The blockdev command produces the following
(btw - I couldn't find a way to redirect ALL output to a file, even 2>&1
still printed on the terminal):
"blockdev --rereadpt /dec/cciss/c0d0
blocks= 142253280 blobl_size= 512
heads= 255, sectors= 32, cylinders= 17433
cciss/codo: unknown partition table"
it then goes on to partition the disk and prints out what looks like a
valid partition table and if I rerun the blockdev command at that point
instead of saying it's an unknown partition table it says
cciss/c0d0: p1 p2 p3
Is the "unknown parition table" another one of those things that's
expected since the table had just been removed?
-mark
Mark Seger wrote:
> Ahh, I just tried parted again but this time tried to print the
> partition table and got a second warning, which says it all:
>
> "Warning: Unable to align partition properly. This probably means
> that another partitioning tool generated an
> incorrect partition table, because it didn't have the correct BIOS
> geometry. It is safe to ignore,but ignoring
> may cause (fixable) problems with some boot loaders."
>
> and then if I look at the partition table it self I see:
>
> Disk geometry for /dev/cciss/c0d0: 0.000-69459.609 megabytes
> Disk label type: msdos
> Minor Start End Type Filesystem Flags
> 1 0.000 96.321 primary ext3 boot
> 2 96.321 2049.446 primary linux-swap
> 3 2049.446 69459.609 primary ext3
>
> In any event, it seems if you create the partition table using 'disk
> druid' (which is exactly what I did do) or whatever that thing is
> called that redhat uses, you get into trouble. Is this a known
> problem? Is there a way to get around this situation? I gotta
> believe it will happen to others...
>
> -mark
>
> Mark Seger wrote:
>
>> I hope people can follow this description...
>>
>> I just took a sustem that was running rhel4 and put down an image
>> from rhel3. The installation completed and the system rebooted. For
>> grins, I ran parted to look at the partition table for
>> /dev/cciss/c0d0 and saw this:
>>
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# parted /dev/cciss/c0d0
>> GNU Parted 1.6.3
>> Copyright (C) 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Free Software Foundation,
>> Inc.
>> This program is free software, covered by the GNU General Public
>> License.
>>
>> This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
>> WITHOUT ANY
>> WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
>> FITNESS FOR A
>> PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more
>> details.
>>
>> Using /dev/cciss/c0d0
>> Error: The partition table on /dev/cciss/c0d0 is inconsistent. There
>> are many
>> reasons why this might be the case. However, the most likely reason
>> is that
>> Linux detected the BIOS geometry for /dev/cciss/c0d0 incorrectly.
>> GNU Parted
>> suspects the real geometry should be 8854/255/63 (not 17433/255/32).
>> You should
>> check with your BIOS first, as this may not be correct. You can
>> inform Linux by
>> adding the parameter cciss/c0d0=8854,255,63 to the command line. See
>> the LILO
>> or GRUB documentation for more information. If you think Parted's
>> suggested
>> geometry is correct, you may select Ignore to continue (and fix Linux
>> later).
>> Otherwise, select Cancel (and fix Linux and/or the BIOS now).
>> Ignore/Cancel? c
>> Information: The operating system thinks the geometry on
>> /dev/cciss/c0d0 is
>> 17433/255/32. Therefore, cylinder 1024 ends at 4079.999M.
>>
>> I then decided to try putting back rhel4 on it and got the same
>> errors as before when I tried to install rhel4 on top of a system
>> that used to have rhel3. Therefore, the rhel3 installation is
>> obviously configuring the disk in a way that not only causes parted
>> to print the above warning, it also prevents one from installing a
>> valid golden image that was taken of a rhel4 system. I'm not
>> convinced so much that it's an rhel3 vs rhel4 thing but there is
>> clearly something different between the two...
>>
>> clearly a question for a partitioning heavy, but does SI completely
>> remove all partitions before it lays down the new one? Is there an
>> additional level of removal that it might be able to do to assure
>> that it will be successful in recreating the partitions?
>>
>> In any event I now have 2 system, both which used to run rhel4 and
>> not neither can any more and can only run rhel3. I'm hoping someone
>> will come up with a solution that will allow me to put rhel4 back on
>> them as opposed to having to manually install from disk (that's so
>> 1990s)...
>>
>> -mark
>>
>> Mark Seger wrote:
>>
>>> Ufortunately this is going to be complicated to explain, but I'll
>>> try to be coherent...
>>>
>>> I installed rhel4 onto a single cciss disk (on a machine that has 2
>>> of them) and took an image. I then successfully installed ithat
>>> image on 6 other machines multiple times without error.
>>>
>>> I then wanted to see if SI could deal with rhel3 which has an older
>>> version of grub that I know to have problems. The first odd thing
>>> about the installation was it complained about the disk geometery,
>>> claming something was inconsistent and did I want to ignore it
>>> (feels like this was caused by SI). I said yes, assuming the
>>> installation process could deal with it but I also manually
>>> deleted/recreated all the partitions just to have a known quantity.
>>> I gave the first one the label /boot and made it 100MB. The second
>>> I defined as swap and made it 2048MB and the third as / telling it
>>> to fill the available space.
>>>
>>> The one curious thing was that when I looked at the disk layout a
>>> small chunk of free space was inserted in front of the boot
>>> partitions and so /boot didn't start at the beginning. In any
>>> event, the system built/booted correctly. I took an image with
>>> system imager and was able to reimage the target system and boot it.
>>>
>>> Next, I tried to put the rhel4 system back on top of the system than
>>> had the rhel3 image on it. The resultant system wouldn't boot and
>>> actually hung in the middle of the process. I took a screen shot
>>> and can forward it if anyone cares. But perhaps more important, I
>>> tried again to put down a rhel3 image and it succeeded and booted.
>>> I went back and tried to reload rhel4 but this time with an exit
>>> statement in the autoinstall script so I could see any errors that
>>> were generated. Since I didn't know how to capture them in a file,
>>> here they are as typed in by me:
>>>
>>> Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
>>> end_requesst: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
>>> [repeated 14 times]
>>> Installation finished. No errors reported.
>>> This is the contents of the device map /boot/grub/device.map.
>>> Check if this is correct or not. If any of teh lines is incorrect,
>>> fix it and re-run the script 'grub-install'.
>>>
>>> (fd0) /dev/fd0
>>> (hd1) /dev/cciss/c0d0
>>> (hd2) /dev/cciss/c0d1
>>> WARNING: Label SW-cciss/c0d0p2 not found anywhere on the system! at
>>> /usr/lib/sysconfig/Boot/Grub.pm line 207
>>> Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
>>> end_requesst: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
>>> Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
>>> end_requesst: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
>>>
>>> Please press Enter to activate this console.
>>>
>>> It feels like SystemImager is not recreating the partions identical
>>> to what they used to be and more importantly, it would seem that
>>> it's possible to have a valid partition table (in this case one from
>>> rhel3) on a system that you want to replace with a different one
>>> (generated from rhel4) can can't.
>>>
>>> In summary, I now have 2 images, one for rhel3 and one for rhel4.
>>> The rhel3 WILL install on a system that previously had rhel3 but the
>>> rhel4 won't install on that same system! I suppose the next test is
>>> to try installing the rhel3 system on one that used to be home for
>>> rhel4 but wouldn't you know it, I'm having network problems right
>>> now and can't do it.
>>>
>>> In any event, I have seen issues in the past with version 3.2.0
>>> where SI got confused when existing partitions weren't consistent
>>> with what was trying to be installed and I think this time I have
>>> the ideal environment to debug it if you're game. Just tell me what
>>> files you'd like to see and what tests to try.
>>>
>>> -mark
>>>
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