grub no longer being maintained? drops support for XFS?

grub no longer being maintained? drops support for XFS?

[Linda A. Walsh]

I just saw this bug, https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=459792,
that reports a problem in OpenSUSE with Grub being unable to boot with
XFS when someone upgraded from OpenSuSE11.0 to OpenSuSE11.1.
Quote:

Grub is unable to start if /boot is on xfs partition.
Found after updating from 11.0 to 11.1.

Response from Novell:

------- Comment #1 From Jiri Srain (jsrain(at)novell(dot)com) 2008-12-18 04:24:39 MST 
-------

We agreed with product management that /boot on XFS will not be a supported
bootloader scenario. See relevant thread on factory to see explanations;
successful booting from XFS is just a pure luck.

Perhaps if Grub can't support XFS, the default bootloader should
be upgraded to 'lilo' -- as it still seems to be maintained and still
supports high performance file systems like XFS.



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Re: grub no longer being maintained? drops support for XFS?

[Sujit Karataparambil]

This is an Known Issue. Grub hangs when used With XFS. You could
Try Lilo instead. But does the same with my experiance.

On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 10:30 AM, Linda A. Walsh<suse@tlinx.org> wrote:
> I just saw this bug, https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=459792,
> that reports a problem in OpenSUSE with Grub being unable to boot with
> XFS when someone upgraded from OpenSuSE11.0 to OpenSuSE11.1.
> Quote:
>
> Grub is unable to start if /boot is on xfs partition.
> Found after updating from 11.0 to 11.1.
>
> Response from Novell:
>
> ------- Comment #1 From Jiri Srain (jsrain(at)novell(dot)com) 2008-12-18
> 04:24:39 MST -------
>
> We agreed with product management that /boot on XFS will not be a supported
> bootloader scenario. See relevant thread on factory to see explanations;
> successful booting from XFS is just a pure luck.
>
> Perhaps if Grub can't support XFS, the default bootloader should
> be upgraded to 'lilo' -- as it still seems to be maintained and still
> supports high performance file systems like XFS.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> xfs mailing list
> xfs@oss.sgi.com
> http://oss.sgi.com/mailman/listinfo/xfs
>



-- 
-- Sujit K M

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Re: grub no longer being maintained? drops support for XFS?

[Jason White]

Sujit Karataparambil <sjt.kar@gmail.com> wrote:
> This is an Known Issue. Grub hangs when used With XFS. You could
> Try Lilo instead. 

Grub in the master boot record works for me with XFS as the only file system
on the disk. These are Debian machines, in case that makes a difference.

Grub 2 might have better support for XFS.

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Re: grub no longer being maintained? drops support for XFS?

[Sujit Karataparambil]

I am running Ubuntu 8.10 Server. As the defect resolution says, As
I am installing XFS/Upgrading to XFS, Tries to Install Lilo which too
it fails. Might be specific to Ubuntu 8.10. The Kernel is 2.6.26 I think.

On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 11:19 AM, Jason White<jason@jasonjgw.net> wrote:
> Sujit Karataparambil <sjt.kar@gmail.com> wrote:
>> This is an Known Issue. Grub hangs when used With XFS. You could
>> Try Lilo instead.
>
> Grub in the master boot record works for me with XFS as the only file system
> on the disk. These are Debian machines, in case that makes a difference.
>
> Grub 2 might have better support for XFS.
>
> _______________________________________________
> xfs mailing list
> xfs@oss.sgi.com
> http://oss.sgi.com/mailman/listinfo/xfs
>



-- 
-- Sujit K M

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Re: grub no longer being maintained? so Suse drops support for XFS boot?

[Linda Walsh]

Re: "Grub supposedly unable to start if /boot is on xfs partition,
    So, because grub is broken, XFS is no longer supported as 
    a boot partition by Novell/SuSE. (!)...

Sujit Karataparambil wrote:
> This is an Known Issue. Grub hangs when used With XFS. You could
> Try Lilo instead. But does the same with my experiance.
---
	Weird.  I've been booting from xfs with lilo, and more
recently, 'grub', from suse 7.x up to 11.1.  

	I haven't any recent probs concerning lilo, but I saw this 
same type of issue and a solution in Ubuntu's bug database (though they
encountered this problem 3 years ago and automatically used a
workaround to not corrupt a user's choice of filesystem.

The issue was Grub not being able to write to the root directory
if it is formatted as an XFS partition.  

The response was Ubuntu's workaround (maybe openSuSE could figure out
how they did this...it is open source...and they could adopt their
solution rather than just throwing up their hands and saying they
don't support XFS).

The Ubuntu installer automatically uses lilo in the case where the
root (or boot) file system is XFS.  Thus no ever sees the problem 
grub has with XFS, they simply use the more primitive, but more 
reliable 'lilo' bootloader.

It's a bit weird to see some people at SuSE prefer to work around
a bootloader bug by disallowing user-desired file systems, rather than
by simply using a bootloader that doesn't have the bug.  
I would have thought that most people would have simply chosen to 
Not use a buggy boot-loader and use a more reliable alternative, over
disallowing file-systems that are unsupported by the buggy-boot loader.

Some folks at Suse must have a real 'thing' for 'grub' to rate it's
importance more highly than users' file system choices...

But I would really suggest that OpenSuse follow Ubuntu's example -- 
just use a bootloader that works.  Don't limit file-system selection 
based on the bugs of a bootloader (same would be true if lilo didn't
work with some filesystem and grub did...use the combinations that
work -- to rigidly disallow anything that grub suggests someone needs
to re-examine their priorities.

FWIW, though, I _am_ using grub, with XFS...but if grub broke, I'd 
switch back to lilo in a heartbeat, NOT reformat my boot or root
partition to accommodate the bootloader's bugs de jour.
 
-linda




	

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Re: grub no longer being maintained? so Suse drops support for XFS boot?

[Jason White]

Linda Walsh <suse@tlinx.org> wrote:
>
> Re: "Grub supposedly unable to start if /boot is on xfs partition,
>    So, because grub is broken, XFS is no longer supported as    a boot 
> partition by Novell/SuSE. (!)...

I should point out that I had to install it using the grub shell; running
grub-install did not work.

Interestingly, Ubuntu are moving to Grub 2 as their default boot loader, a
precedent which other distributions may follow. (Disclaimer: I read the
announcement, but I'm not a Ubuntu user.)

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Re: grub no longer being maintained? so Suse drops support for XFS boot?

[Matthias Schniedermeyer]

On 11.06.2009 23:38, Linda Walsh wrote:
>
> Re: "Grub supposedly unable to start if /boot is on xfs partition,
>    So, because grub is broken, XFS is no longer supported as    a boot 
> partition by Novell/SuSE. (!)...

The report below says that grub can't WRITE to XFS.
Supposedly the 'default'-file. Don't know what else GRUB may want to write.
Which, depending on preference, is superfluous anyway.

So if you switch that off (don't know how, never used it myself) all 
should be fine.

OTOH as long as you can live with a separate boot-partition, what's the 
problem of formating it with ext2. fsck-times for a single/double-digit 
MB boot-partition are negligible.

I've been using XFS for anything but boot-partitions for years.
IMHO GRUB is more important than free choice of boot-partition 
filesystem. At least until GRUB2 is finished, whenever that happens.

> Sujit Karataparambil wrote:
>> This is an Known Issue. Grub hangs when used With XFS. You could
>> Try Lilo instead. But does the same with my experiance.
> ---
> 	Weird.  I've been booting from xfs with lilo, and more
> recently, 'grub', from suse 7.x up to 11.1.  
>
> 	I haven't any recent probs concerning lilo, but I saw this same type of 
> issue and a solution in Ubuntu's bug database (though they
> encountered this problem 3 years ago and automatically used a
> workaround to not corrupt a user's choice of filesystem.
>
> The issue was Grub not being able to write to the root directory
> if it is formatted as an XFS partition.  
>
> The response was Ubuntu's workaround (maybe openSuSE could figure out
> how they did this...it is open source...and they could adopt their
> solution rather than just throwing up their hands and saying they
> don't support XFS).
>
> The Ubuntu installer automatically uses lilo in the case where the
> root (or boot) file system is XFS.  Thus no ever sees the problem grub 
> has with XFS, they simply use the more primitive, but more reliable 
> 'lilo' bootloader.
>
> It's a bit weird to see some people at SuSE prefer to work around
> a bootloader bug by disallowing user-desired file systems, rather than
> by simply using a bootloader that doesn't have the bug.  I would have 
> thought that most people would have simply chosen to Not use a buggy 
> boot-loader and use a more reliable alternative, over
> disallowing file-systems that are unsupported by the buggy-boot loader.
>
> Some folks at Suse must have a real 'thing' for 'grub' to rate it's
> importance more highly than users' file system choices...
>
> But I would really suggest that OpenSuse follow Ubuntu's example -- just 
> use a bootloader that works.  Don't limit file-system selection based on 
> the bugs of a bootloader (same would be true if lilo didn't
> work with some filesystem and grub did...use the combinations that
> work -- to rigidly disallow anything that grub suggests someone needs
> to re-examine their priorities.
>
> FWIW, though, I _am_ using grub, with XFS...but if grub broke, I'd  
> switch back to lilo in a heartbeat, NOT reformat my boot or root
> partition to accommodate the bootloader's bugs de jour.
>
> -linda
>
>
>
>
> 	
>
> _______________________________________________
> xfs mailing list
> xfs@oss.sgi.com
> http://oss.sgi.com/mailman/listinfo/xfs

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Re: grub no longer being maintained? so Suse drops support for XFS boot?

[Michael Weissenbacher]

Hi!
> OTOH as long as you can live with a separate boot-partition, what's the 
> problem of formating it with ext2. fsck-times for a single/double-digit 
> MB boot-partition are negligible.
I've always been using a small seperate ext2 Partition for /boot, since i've found this to be the most robust solution. Also when other Filesystems like reiser4 or btrfs come in play. I'd say XFS support in Grub is nice to have, but not a must.
Maybe the distributions should just default to an ext2 Partition for /boot. That would keep most people happy, wouldn't it?

just my 2c

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Re: grub no longer being maintained? so Suse drops support for XFS boot?

[Jason White]

Michael Weissenbacher <mw@dermichi.com> wrote:
> I've always been using a small seperate ext2 Partition for /boot, since i've
> found this to be the most robust solution. Also when other Filesystems like
> reiser4 or btrfs come in play. I'd say XFS support in Grub is nice to have,
> but not a must.  

I would much prefer to have that support, since I tend to partition my disks
as one single XFS partition, which can be backed up with xfsdump easily.

If anyone has run tests with Grub2 in its current state of development, I
would be interested in the results.

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Re: grub no longer being maintained? drops support for XFS?

[Eric Sandeen]

Linda A. Walsh wrote:
> I just saw this bug, https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=459792,
> that reports a problem in OpenSUSE with Grub being unable to boot with
> XFS when someone upgraded from OpenSuSE11.0 to OpenSuSE11.1.
> Quote:
> 
> Grub is unable to start if /boot is on xfs partition.
> Found after updating from 11.0 to 11.1.

Well, I see we have a thread...

Grub makes bad assumptions about what it can do to a filesystem, and the
problems lie with reading directly from and writing directly to a
filesystem's block device while it's -mounted-, when grub is being
installed.

Sometimes this even trips up ext3 as well, but the problem is more
obvious with xfs.  If you look at all the sync sync sync sleeps in grub
you'll see that they are desperately trying to make the block device
coherent with the filesystem, which they simply cannot do with syncs and
sleeps.  Some distros have tried adding xfs_freeze calls to quiesce the
filesystem, and when this can be done, it generally works, but it'd be
better if grub would just not do IO to the device while it's mounted, in
general.

That being said, hch's recent xfs sync changes should make this much
more likely to succeed in the future at least, despite grub's notions of
what's safe.

-Eric

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