Hello.
Thanks a lot, Joel, for your kind and detailed suggestions.
Here's what I did since yesterday, yielding the following positive
result: 5.3 upgrade successful, but with one of the two disks removed.
I did:
- retried boot: no way, same message 'Using drive 0, partition 3'
- removed one disk (sd0), reboot: same message 'Using drive 0,
partition 3'
- replaced removed disk, removed the other one (sd1): boot success,
install/shell/upgrade prompt
- 'sh MAKEDEV sd0 sd1', root disk=sd1/SR RAID 1, upgrade successful,
reboot, sysmerge, deleted files as detailed in the upgrade guide,
reboot.
Now, what lies ahead looks furiously like RAID rebuild. Here's what I
intend to do :
- reinsert the disk that was out during the upgrade
- reboot
- if successful, check RAID state with bioctl (I identified previously the
serials, and put a sticker on them)
- rebuild.
As concerns the softraid documentation, the fault is entirely mine:
it's just concepts I'm not enough familiar with to run things while
leniently sipping a cuba libre :-)
During 5.2 install, now that I reread my notes, I notice that I had
the exact same problems of non existent devices, and the necessity
to create them/verify their existence, which I did haphazardly.
Once again, thanks a lot for your help.
Olivier Debré
Le 15/05/2013 18:27, Joel Sing a écrit :
On Thu, 16 May 2013, Joel Sing wrote:
On Wed, 15 May 2013, [email protected] wrote:
Hello everyone.
I failed to upgrade my server from 5.2 to 5.3, probably because of a
bad answer to the 'Root filesystem?' question.
Setup:
- HP ProLiant MicroServer N40L server, amd64, GENERIC kernel
- Two disks (sd0, sd1) in softraid (sd2)
- I followed the 'Upgrading by install kernel' process, with the 5.3
version of bsd.rd which I placed in /.
- at the 'Root filesystem? [sd0]' question, instead of accepting the
first physical disk detected, I answered 'sd2', thinking that I
shouldn't indicate a particular disk among the two physical ones. I
followed a similar advice found on a couple of blog pages [1, 2].
Result:
- At the end of the upgrade process, following message :
Failed to install bootblocks.
You will not be able to boot OpenBSD from sd2
- Indeed, can't boot anymore, boot process stalled with the following
message:
Using drive 0, partition 3
Loading...
Sorry, I missed this part. This is unexpected/unusual. This may indicate that
it managed to update the boot loader (in the softraid boot area), even though
it failed to update the boot block (I need to check which order this is done
in to confirm). This would potentially cause this problem.
Which disk were you booting from and have you tried booting from the other
disk? There is a good chance that you'll be able to boot from the second
disk - failing that, repeat the upgrade process and make the missing device
nodes as mentioned previously.
- Powered off the server.
Questions :
- did I break things irremediably, hense will have to reinstall
everything from scratch and backups?
Nope, highly unlikely. The system will most likely boot, if not just repeat
the upgrade. If it does boot you can manually update the boot blocks/boot
loader:
/usr/mdec/installboot -v /usr/mdec/boot /usr/mdec/biosboot sd2
It is just an error that occurred when installboot was run against the
softraid volume. This is most likely due to missing device nodes for sd1
(e.g. /dev/sd1*). There is a current discussion on bugs@ regarding the same
issue - for some reason I thought the installer already handled this,
however it appears that it does not currently.
As a work around, prior to starting the upgrade drop to a shell (for
example, type '!' at the "Root filesystem" question) and ensure the device
nodes exist:
# cd /dev
# sh MAKEDEV sd0 sd1 sd2
# exit
The upgrade should now complete normally.
- alternatively, should I try something else like removing one disk or
the other, then try to rebuild the RAID?
Thanks in advance. I must confess that the first softraid building and
5.2 install was a real pain for me, and I still do not fully grasp
softraid, and the way it may interact with the upgrade process.
How can we make it clearer? I need to spend some time working on the
softraid documentation (hopefully in the not too distant future) - what do
you need to know?
Olivier Debre
Refs.
[1]
http://spiritedblowfish.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/installing-openbsd-5-1-a
md 64-using-softraid/ [2]
http://blog.cochard.me/2012/03/openbsd-51-installation-on-sofraid4.html
