NOTES ABOUT LOADING RAID DEVICES
--------------------------------
After hacking a custom boot floppy based on RedHat's bootnet.img RHv8.0 to install a RHv7.2 distro using a kickstart config file, I was receiving errors about the installer finding the raid devices (md0...). I thought adding the raid1.o, raid5.o, xor.o, etc. would fix this just like adding my SCSI .o file to the modules.cgz within the initrd.img on the bootnet.img floppy. However, this failed to my dismay. I noticed during a kickstart install based on the original boot.img floppy using the CDROM as the source the RAID devices were successfully found and formatted. During my boot floppy image hackings, I recalled that the boot.img, however, did not contain any raid?.o modules within it's own modules.cgz. So where was it getting it from?
After reviewing the /mnt/runtime/var/lib/xkb/anaconda.log I saw that the raid modules were loaded from the device /tmp/loop0 mounted on /mnt/runtime which was referencing /mnt/source/RedHat/base/stage2.img. It is this image on the CDROM as well as withing the FTP source directory that the raid modules are gathered from during the installation.
Why was my original attempts failing if the modules were there the whole time? I think it stems from using a mismatch of the RH boot floppies and the distros. Originally I was using RHv8.0 floppies to install a RHv7.2 distro. But using, a matching set of floppies with distro worked.
----------------IN RESPONSE TO THE BELOW POSTING ---------------------------------
software raid, kickstart and pxe installation
Stefano Turolla kickstart-list at redhat.com
07 Jan 2003 17:28:32 +0100
Hi everybody,
i am trying to install
(with kickstart) a Dell Poweredge 1650 with two
18GB identical scsi
disks.
I want the two disks mirrored via raid software and two swap
partitions
( one per disk ).
I am using redhat 7.3 with pxe network
installation that is working fine
with other architectures and without
RAID.
I rebuild the initrd.img image using modules and kernel
from
kernel-BOOT-2.4.18-18.7.x because of a problem with gigabit
ethernet
drivers.
The ditribution i am using is the redhat 7.3 with
all latest patches
that i am currently using to install and update other 80
hosts without
problems.
All the boot process is ok, aic7xxx, e1000, nfs
and other modules are
loaded correctly, the the kickstart installation (with
the correct
configuration files starts.
PROBLEM:
The partitions are
created but the raid creation fails i think because
raid module is not
loaded, can you help me ?
What i mainly don't understand is why loading of
other modules like scsi
and nfs works while raid driver are not found.
Do
they need to be in a particular directory in initrd.img and is there
any way
to force to load them from a particular path?
thanks in
advance
ciao
stefano
The error message i get
is
"An error occurred trying to format md0. This problem is serious and
the
install cannot continue"
On the kernel side (<alt>
<f3>)) i have
modules to insert raid0 raid1 xor raid5 msdos jbd
ext3 reiserfs jfs xfs
lvm-mod
module(s) to raid0 raid1 xor raid5 msdos
jbd ext3 reiserfs jfs xfs
lvm-mod not found
on
<alt><f4>
SCSI device sda: 35566478 512 byte hwdr sectors
(18220 MB)
sda: sda1 sda2
SCSI device sdb: 35566478 512 byte hwdr sectors
(18220 MB)
sdb: sdb1 sdb2
Adding swap.
.....
<6>md:
bind <sda1,1>
<6>md: bind <sdb1,1>
<6>sda1's event
counter: 0000000
<6>sdb1's event counter: 0000000
<3>md: md0
raid array is not clean, starting background reconstruction
<6>md: RAID
level 1 does not need chunksize! Continuing anyway
<3> personality 3 is
not loaded
<6>md: unbind <sda1,1>
<6>md:
export_rdev(sda1)
<6>md: unbind <sdb1,1>
<6>md:
export_rdev(sda1)
This is my kickstart configuration
file
-------------------------------------------
lang
en_US
langsupport --default en_US
text
network --bootproto
static --ip 134.171.xx.xx --gateway 134.171.yy.yy
--netmask 255.255.255.0
--nameserver 134.171.zz.zz
nfs --server server.eso.org --dir
/linux/redhat/7.3/os/i386
# select keyboard
keyboard us
# reset
Master Boot Record
zerombr yes
# destroy all existing partitions on
all disks
clearpart --all
part swap --size=2048 -->part
swap --size=2048 -->part raid.01 --size=2000 --grow
-->part raid.02 --size=2000 --grow -->raid / --level=1
--fstype=ext2 --device=md0 raid.01
raid.02
install
Here is the list of modules added to
initrd.img in
modules/modules.cgz
---------------------------------------------
ls -l
2.4.18-18.7.xBOOT/
total 775
-rw-r--r-- 1
root root
36764 Dec 20 11:35 3c59x.o
-rw-r--r-- 1
root root 136441 Dec
20 11:36 aic7xxx.o
-rw-r--r-- 1
root root
67563 Dec 20 11:35 e1000.o
-rw-r--r-- 1
root root
27212 Dec 20 11:36 eepro100.o
-rw-r--r-- 1
root
root 3412 Jan 7 14:50
linear.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 root
root 68225 Dec 20 11:37
lockd.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 root
root 53264 Jan 7 14:50
lvm-mod.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 root
root 11756 Jan 7 14:50
multipath.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 root
root 100398 Dec 20 11:39
nfs.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 root
root 5672 Dec 20 11:36
raid0.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 root
root 18016 Dec 20 11:36
raid1.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 root
root 21980 Jan 7 14:50
raid5.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 root
root 83588 Dec 20 11:38
scsi_mod.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 root
root 17522 Dec 20 11:38
sd_mod.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 root
root 20703 Dec 20 11:38
sr_mod.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 root
root 88552 Dec 18 12:28
sunrpc.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 root
root 10148 Jan 7 14:50
xor.o
module-info
---------------------------------
Version
0
aic7xxx
scsi
"Adaptec AHA-2740, 28xx,
29xx, 39xx"
3c59x
eth
"3Com
3c590/3c595/3c90x/3cx980"
e1000
eth
"Intel EtherExpress/1000
gigabit"
modules.dep
----------------------------------
aic7xxx:
scsi_mod
usb-storage: scsi_mod
lockd: sunrpc
nfs: sunrpc
lockd
sd_mod: scsi_mod
raid5:
xor
pcitable
----------------------------------
0x9004
0x7893 "aic7xxx" "Adaptec|AIC-789x"
0x9004
0x7894 "aic7xxx" "Adaptec|AIC-789x"
0x9004
0x7895 "aic7xxx" "Adaptec|AHA-2940U/UW / AHA-39xx
/AIC-7895"
0x9004 0x7896 "aic7xxx"
"Adaptec|AIC-789x"
0x9004 0x7897 "aic7xxx"
"Adaptec|AIC-789x"
0x9004 0x8078 "aic7xxx"
"Adaptec|AIC-7880U"
0x9004 0x8178 "aic7xxx"
"Adaptec|AHA-2940U/UW/D / AIC-7881U"
........
0x8086 0x1000 "e1000"
"Intel Corp.|82542 Gigabit Ethernet Controller"
0x8086 0x1001 "e1000"
"Intel Corp.|82543GC Gigabit Ethernet Controller"
0x8086 0x1004 "e1000"
"Intel Corp.|82543GC Gigabit Ethernet Controller"
0x8086 0x1008 "e1000"
"Intel Corp.|82544EI Gigabit Ethernet Controller"
0x8086 0x1009 "e1000"
"Intel Corp.|82544EI Gigabit Ethernet Controller"
0x8086 0x100c "e1000"
"Intel Corp.|82544GC Gigabit Ethernet Controller"
0x8086 0x100d "e1000"
"Intel Corp.|82544GC Gigabit Ethernet Controller"
0x8086 0x100e "e1000"
"Intel Corp.|Dell Integrated Gigabit Controller"
