On Tue, 23 Sep 2008, Bob Bell wrote:
Greetings, Bob,
I'm up a creek, and hoping someone out there can help rescue my data, or at
least tell me what went wrong so that I don't have a repeat event. I'm
starting with this question on linux-lvm, though let me know if you think the
discussion needs to be on linux-raid as well.
I'm setting up a new server running Ubuntu's Hardy Heron release. `lvm
version` reports:
LVM version: 2.02.26 (2007-06-15)
Library version: 1.02.20 (2007-06-15)
Driver version: 4.12.0
`uname -a` reports:
Linux sherwood 2.6.24-16-server #1 SMP Thu Apr 10 13:58:00 UTC 2008 i686
GNU/Linux
I initially created an md RAID5 device with only two components (matching 320
GB SATA HDDs). I created a single Physical Volume using the entirety of that
md device (320 GB), and then created several Logical Volumes for different
filesystems (all ext3). This was done using the Ubuntu installer. After
installing I used lvresize to increase the size of a few of the Logical
Volumes, as I was conservative regarding the size during installation. These
filesystems hold data that is not a critical part of the system (mail, music,
video, etc.).
(I also have a similar setup with a couple of IDE drives that I use for the
system (/home, /var, /boot, /), but I haven't touched those since the install
and they continue to work fine.)
I then copied data from a third matching 320 GB SATA HDD to one of the
Logical Volume filesystems on the md device. After freeing up that drive (by
relocating its contents to the LVM/MD setup), I added the drive to the md
device, which brought the total to 2 active devices and 1 spare device. I
then grew the number of devices to 3 and waited for the reshape to finish
(increasing the capacity to 640 GB). I bumped the values in
/proc/sys/dev/raid/ so that I wouldn't have to wait as long.
My understanding of RAID5 is that once you configure the set of disks to
the array, you can't just add an additional disk to it. Attempting to do
so does more than just "reshape" the array, it changes the logical layout
of the sectors completely. It's no wonder that LVM can't find anything,
since it's data (if it survived the reorg) is no longer where it should
be. And, once you've done this, there's really no going back to recover.
This is assuming my understanding of RAID5 is correct.
Now that the reshaping is completed, LVM can't find the physical volume on
that device anymore. I tried rebooting the system, but the problem remained.
Checking /proc/mdstat shows that the md device is up and healthy. The
pvdisplay command only shows my other Physical Volume (for the IDE drives).
I found the pvck command and ran that on the md device, and it states that
there is no LVM label on the device.
It is my understanding that the steps I outlined should have worked. I
planned to follow them with pvresize, then lvresize, then umount, resize2fs,
and mount again. I've seen this procedure outlined a few different places,
including at http://gentoo-wiki.com/Resize_LVM2_on_RAID5.
Did I do something wrong? Is there anyway to rescue my data? I saved the
contents of /etc/lvm/backup/ when I noticed the problem -- perhaps that might
help? If there's no way of saving the data, I'd at least like to figure out
what happened in the first place.
Thank you. Your thoughtfulness and help is appreciated.
--
Peter A. Castro <doctor@fruitbat.org> or <Peter.Castro@oracle.com>
"Cats are just autistic Dogs" -- Dr. Tony Attwood
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