[linux-lvm] LVM fails at bootup

[linux-lvm] LVM fails at bootup

[Bradley M Alexander]

Hi all,

I am just trying out LVM for a space allocation problem that I am running
into, and I am having problems with getting the machine to boot with the
new configuration.

The machine is an i386 (Athlon with a Maxtor30 GB IDE HD on hda and a
Quantum   
30 GB IDE HD on hdb). It is running Debian/GNU Linux (unstable/sid) with a
2.4.13 kernel which was custom compiled. It is also running devfs.

I am using (or attempting to use) lvm 1.0.1rc4 compiled directly into the
kernel.

I compiled the tools, patched the kernel, booted onto the patched kernel. I
was able to create the pv on /dev/hdb after figuring out that I had to give
the full path to the drive, and then was able to create the volgroup (vg01)
and the logical volumes fine. They mounted fine manually, but after
changing fstab and copying the files on to the logical volume, I rebooted.
Thats when my problems began.

I added the vgscan and the vgchange commands to the end of the checkroot.sh
script (which in Debian is different from the mountfs.sh script). When the
vgscan runs, it generates about two pages of drive errors:

hdb: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
hdb: read_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }

followed by two

modprobe: Can't locate module /dev/vg01

then vgscan finds the volume, followed by vgchange activating it. After
this,
I get a series of "Can't locate module /dev/vg01/<logical volume> errors.
After several iterations of this, the machine hangs trying to start
syslogging.

The filesystems I am trying to lvm are

/var
/tmp
/home
/usr/local
/opt
/backup (backup images of filesystems on machines in my network)
/archive (cd images, mp3s etc)

Once I get this booting on the lvm'ed filesystems, I plan to free up the
partitions that these occupy and create a second volgroup on /dev/hda, then
splitting up the above filesystems between the two volgrps.

Note that once I reverted the system back to the old fstab (effectively
using the old partitions, I tried mounting the lvm filesystems. They
mounted just fine, and in fact, hdb does not give the drive errors when I
do a vgscan (nor has it ever given me drive errors, and a Debian mirror
used to live there).

Is it the partition selections I made? I checked and devfs is initialized
even before / is checked, S01devfsd versus S10checkroot.sh. Why am I unable
to mount my LVM partitions when I boot straight, but it mounts when I boot
the system and do the steps manually? Did I miss something major?

-- 
--Brad
============================================================================
Bradley M. Alexander, CISSP              |   Co-Chairman,
Beowulf System Admin/Security Specialist |    NoVALUG/DCLUG Security SIG
Debian/GNU Linux Developer		 |   storm@debian.org
                                         |   storm@tux.org
============================================================================
As usual, this being a 1.3.x release, I haven't even compiled this kernel yet.
So if it works, you should be doubly impressed.
(Linus Torvalds, announcing kernel 1.3.3 on the linux-kernel mailing list.)

Re: [linux-lvm] LVM fails at bootup

[Andreas Dilger]

On Nov 12, 2001  14:19 -0500, Bradley M Alexander wrote:
> I added the vgscan and the vgchange commands to the end of the checkroot.sh
> script (which in Debian is different from the mountfs.sh script). When the
> vgscan runs, it generates about two pages of drive errors:
> 
> hdb: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
> hdb: read_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }

Don't know about this - looks like hardware problems.

> followed by two
> 
> modprobe: Can't locate module /dev/vg01
> I get a series of "Can't locate module /dev/vg01/<logical volume> errors.

Maybe you need the following lines in your /etc/modules.conf:

alias block-major-58 lvm-mod
alias char-major-109 lvm-mod

Cheers, Andreas
--
Andreas Dilger
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2resize/
http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/

Re: [linux-lvm] LVM fails at bootup

[Bradley M Alexander]

On Mon, Nov 12, 2001 at 12:32:27PM -0700, Andreas Dilger wrote:
> On Nov 12, 2001  14:19 -0500, Bradley M Alexander wrote:
> > I added the vgscan and the vgchange commands to the end of the checkroot.sh
> > script (which in Debian is different from the mountfs.sh script). When the
> > vgscan runs, it generates about two pages of drive errors:
> > 
> > hdb: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
> > hdb: read_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
> 
> Don't know about this - looks like hardware problems.

I thought so too, but the fact that it only happens when I try to enable
LVM at bootup makes me think its not. I had a Debian mirror on this drive
prior to this, and it never gave me errors, and if I boot without LVM and
enable it after boot by hand, I don't get these errors. I'm suspecting its
some interaction with devfs, which is why I came here. 

> > followed by two
> > 
> > modprobe: Can't locate module /dev/vg01
> > I get a series of "Can't locate module /dev/vg01/<logical volume> errors.
> 
> Maybe you need the following lines in your /etc/modules.conf:
> 
> alias block-major-58 lvm-mod
> alias char-major-109 lvm-mod

I compiled it into the kernel rather than modular. But I added these to
modules.conf anyway. No change.

-- 
--Brad
============================================================================
Bradley M. Alexander, CISSP              |   Co-Chairman,
Beowulf System Admin/Security Specialist |    NoVALUG/DCLUG Security SIG
Debian/GNU Linux Developer		 |   storm@debian.org
                                         |   storm@tux.org
============================================================================
Always try to keep the number of landings you make equal to the
number of take offs you've made.
					--Rules of the Air, #14

Re: [linux-lvm] LVM fails at bootup

[Benjamin Scott]

On Mon, 12 Nov 2001, Bradley M Alexander wrote:
>> Don't know about this - looks like hardware problems.
>
> I thought so too, but the fact that it only happens when I try to enable
> LVM at bootup makes me think its not.  I had a Debian mirror on this
> drive prior to this, and it never gave me errors, and if I boot without
> LVM and enable it after boot by hand, I don't get these errors.

  Is there anything in your bootscripts which adjusts the IDE driver to use
more conservative settings (usually via "hdparm")?

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott@ntisys.com>
| The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not |
| necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or  |
| organization.  All information is provided without warranty of any kind.  |

Re: [linux-lvm] LVM fails at bootup

[Bradley M Alexander]

On Mon, Nov 12, 2001 at 03:42:10PM -0500, Benjamin Scott wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Nov 2001, Bradley M Alexander wrote:
> >> Don't know about this - looks like hardware problems.
> >
> > I thought so too, but the fact that it only happens when I try to enable
> > LVM at bootup makes me think its not.  I had a Debian mirror on this
> > drive prior to this, and it never gave me errors, and if I boot without
> > LVM and enable it after boot by hand, I don't get these errors.
> 
>   Is there anything in your bootscripts which adjusts the IDE driver to use
> more conservative settings (usually via "hdparm")?

Not that I can find. The only call to hdparm in the startup files turns off
write caching on all of the IDE hard drives at shutdown, and thats in
S40umountfs...No other calls to hdparm that I can find.

-- 
--Brad
============================================================================
Bradley M. Alexander, CISSP              |   Co-Chairman,
Beowulf System Admin/Security Specialist |    NoVALUG/DCLUG Security SIG
Debian/GNU Linux Developer		 |   storm@debian.org
                                         |   storm@tux.org
============================================================================
It's lonely at the top, but you eat better.

Re: [linux-lvm] LVM fails at bootup

[Jim Cromie]

Andreas Dilger wrote:

> On Nov 12, 2001  14:19 -0500, Bradley M Alexander wrote:
> > I added the vgscan and the vgchange commands to the end of the checkroot.sh
> > script (which in Debian is different from the mountfs.sh script). When the
> > vgscan runs, it generates about two pages of drive errors:
> >
> > hdb: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
> > hdb: read_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
>
> Don't know about this - looks like hardware problems.

I got these errors by the pages when I pushed UDMA modes too far
with hdparm trials, long b4 I upgraded to LVM.  Sounds like an IDE error.

check this out.

[root@groucho 1.0.1-rc4]# hdparm -iTt /dev/hdc

/dev/hdc:

 Model=WDC WD300BB-00AUA1, FwRev=18.20D18, SerialNo=WD-WMA6R2353241
 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=57600, SectSize=600, ECCbytes=40
 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=-66060037, LBA=yes, LBAsects=58633344
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
 DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 *udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  1.67 seconds = 76.65 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  4.17 seconds = 15.35 MB/sec

IIRC,

the *udma2 is current setting, beyond which my tired ol p2-233-mobo cannot
tread.

Re: [linux-lvm] LVM fails at bootup

[Joe Thornber]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2001 at 07:09:57PM -0700, Jim Cromie wrote:
> Andreas Dilger wrote:
> 
> > On Nov 12, 2001  14:19 -0500, Bradley M Alexander wrote:
> > > I added the vgscan and the vgchange commands to the end of the checkroot.sh
> > > script (which in Debian is different from the mountfs.sh script). When the
> > > vgscan runs, it generates about two pages of drive errors:
> > >
> > > hdb: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
> > > hdb: read_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }

I've also seen this error when the kernel mistakenly thought there was
a partition on an IDE disk that I was using as a PV.  The vgscan command
then trys to look at this bogus partition and causes all these errors.

- Joe

Re: [linux-lvm] LVM fails at bootup

[Bradley M Alexander]

On Thu, Nov 15, 2001 at 08:12:08AM +0000, Joe Thornber wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 14, 2001 at 07:09:57PM -0700, Jim Cromie wrote:
> > Andreas Dilger wrote:
> > 
> > > On Nov 12, 2001  14:19 -0500, Bradley M Alexander wrote:
> > > > I added the vgscan and the vgchange commands to the end of the checkroot.sh
> > > > script (which in Debian is different from the mountfs.sh script). When the
> > > > vgscan runs, it generates about two pages of drive errors:
> > > >
> > > > hdb: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
> > > > hdb: read_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
> 
> I've also seen this error when the kernel mistakenly thought there was
> a partition on an IDE disk that I was using as a PV.  The vgscan command
> then trys to look at this bogus partition and causes all these errors.

Hmmm...The thing is that the only thing _on_ this hard drive is a PV. I
gave the entire disk to LVM, by creating a PV on it:

pvcreate /dev/hdb

But now that I think about it, since the lvcreate required the absolute
path through devfs (/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/disc), perhaps the
pvcreate should have been done this way as well...But why would it work
manually and not at boot? 

Let me try recreating it and try it again...

Thanks Joe,
-- 
--Brad
============================================================================
Bradley M. Alexander, CISSP              |   Co-Chairman,
Beowulf System Admin/Security Specialist |    NoVALUG/DCLUG Security SIG
Debian/GNU Linux Developer		 |   storm@debian.org
                                         |   storm@tux.org
============================================================================
Stay out of clouds. The silver lining everyone keeps talking
about might be another airplane going in the opposite direction.
Reliable sources also report that mountains have been known to hide
out in clouds.
					--Rules of the Air, #13