Hi, all -- ...and then David T-G said... % % Crossing my fingers that this gets through ... My last few messages have % not come back to me on the list. It looks like anything sent from my server is silently dropped. I've asked majordomo for help; wish me luck. Meanwhile, I have to send these through an alternate server :-/ This is even more fun because I'm only home every three days or so to be able to poke at this :-( Dang! % ... % to pull an image of each RAID partition % % davidtg@gezebel:~> sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda % Disk /dev/sda: 3.7 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 sectors % Disk model: ST4000DM000-1F21 ... % diskfarm:/mnt/10Traid50md/tmp # ls -goh 4T* % -rw-r--r-- 1 4.0T Nov 12 02:05 '4Tsda1.EYNA.dd-bs=256M-conv=sparse,noerror' % -rw-r--r-- 1 4.0T Nov 12 02:05 '4Tsdb1.5YD9.dd-bs=256M-conv=sparse,noerror' % -rw-r--r-- 1 4.0T Nov 12 02:05 '4Tsdc1.5ZY3.dd-bs=256M-conv=sparse,noerror' % diskfarm:/mnt/10Traid50md/tmp # file 4Tsda1.EYNA.dd-bs\=256M-conv\=sparse\,noerror % 4Tsda1.EYNA.dd-bs=256M-conv=sparse,noerror: Linux Software RAID version 1.2 (1) UUID=ca7008ef:90693dae:6c231ad7: 8b3f92d name=diskfarm:0 level=5 disks=4 % % so that I can use overlays to assemble the device and replay the XFS ... % % and have created % % diskfarm:/mnt/10Traid50md/tmp # ls -goh overlay-sd* % -rw-r--r-- 1 4.0T Nov 12 02:05 overlay-sda1 % -rw-r--r-- 1 4.0T Nov 12 02:05 overlay-sdb1 % -rw-r--r-- 1 4.0T Nov 12 02:05 overlay-sdc1 % diskfarm:/mnt/10Traid50md/tmp # losetup -a % /dev/loop1: [66326]:1059 (/mnt/10Traid50md/tmp/overlay-sdb1) % /dev/loop2: [66326]:1060 (/mnt/10Traid50md/tmp/overlay-sdc1) % /dev/loop0: [66326]:1058 (/mnt/10Traid50md/tmp/overlay-sda1) % % my overlay files and loopback devices. But ... % % It seems that blockdev does not like [snip] Thanks to Roman for pointing out that I should look at the loopback devices rather than the overlay files. That gets me on my way again. But ... now I have problems with the device mapper: diskfarm:/mnt/10Traid50md/tmp # echo $size 8388608000 diskfarm:/mnt/10Traid50md/tmp # echo "0 $size snapshot overlay-sda1 /dev/loop0 P 8" | dmsetup create ov-a device-mapper: reload ioctl on ov-a failed: No such device Command failed. ARRRGH! OK, so I'll go to my workstation and poke at the actual devices, with great trepidation, from there. davidtg@gezebel:/mnt/data/tmp/4Traid> ls -goh total 0 -rw-r--r-- 1 4.0T Nov 15 02:00 overlay-sda1 -rw-r--r-- 1 4.0T Nov 15 02:00 overlay-sdb1 -rw-r--r-- 1 4.0T Nov 15 02:00 overlay-sdc1 davidtg@gezebel:/mnt/data/tmp/4Traid> parallel 'size=$(sudo blockdev --getsize {}); loop=$(sudo losetup -f --show -- overlay-{/}) ; echo $loop' ::: $DEVICES /dev/loop0 /dev/loop2 /dev/loop1 davidtg@gezebel:/mnt/data/tmp/4Traid> sudo losetup -a /dev/loop1: [66307]:624372298 (/mnt/data/tmp/4Traid/overlay-sdc1) /dev/loop2: [66307]:624372297 (/mnt/data/tmp/4Traid/overlay-sdb1) /dev/loop0: [66307]:624372296 (/mnt/data/tmp/4Traid/overlay-sda1) ### why are these out of order?!? *sigh* Now, however, when I try to use the dev mapper to create the snapshot device I get davidtg@gezebel:/mnt/data/tmp/4Traid> echo 0 `sudo blockdev --getsize /dev/sda1` snapshot /dev/sda1 /dev/loop0 P 8 | sudo dmsetup create sda1 device-mapper: reload ioctl on sda1 failed: Device or resource busy Command failed. an error. It's simply plugged in! What could have it busy? Or is this a device mapper problem on my OpenSuSE LEAP 15.2 system? I think we need the device mapper to create the snapshot dev to be able to write changes not to the original disks, so we're stuck there. Soooo ... Let's go back to diskfarm and, throwing caution to the winds, attempt to assemble the image files copied over: diskfarm:/mnt/10Traid50md/tmp # mdadm --assemble --force /dev/md4 4Tsda1* 4Tsda2* 4Tsda3* mdadm: 4Tsda1.EYNA.dd-bs=256M-conv=sparse,noerror is not a block device. mdadm: 4Tsda1.EYNA.dd-bs=256M-conv=sparse,noerror has no superblock - assembly aborted OK, yeah, we could predict that. But it gets even more fun: diskfarm:/mnt/10Traid50md/tmp # mdadm --assemble --force /dev/md4 /dev/loop{0,1,2} mdadm: no recogniseable superblock on /dev/loop0 mdadm: /dev/loop0 has no superblock - assembly aborted What?!? Where is my superblock? This is a bit-for-bit copy of the partition itself. Time to fall back for more help from the RAID gods *sigh* Any further recommendations? TIA again :-D -- David T-G See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/email/ See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/tofu.txt