Bug 567225 - After "An error occurred during initrd creation" message, new install does not boot
Summary: After "An error occurred during initrd creation" message, new install does no...
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 583424
Alias: None
Product: openSUSE 11.2
Classification: openSUSE
Component: Installation (show other bugs)
Version: Final
Hardware: x86-64 openSUSE 11.2
: P2 - High : Critical with 10 votes (vote)
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Michal Marek
QA Contact: Jiri Srain
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2009-12-24 15:58 UTC by Gabor Nyers
Modified: 2012-06-18 14:21 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Found By: ---
Services Priority:
Business Priority:
Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: ---
IT Deployment: ---


Attachments
Screenshot of the error in a "Repair Installation" session (134.55 KB, image/jpeg)
2009-12-24 15:58 UTC, Gabor Nyers
Details
Logfile of mkinitrd in chrooted environment (200.07 KB, text/plain)
2010-01-22 16:04 UTC, Jogchum Reitsma
Details
yast logs upon install (338.61 KB, application/zip)
2010-03-30 07:15 UTC, Forgotten User 80STmjAMy_
Details
yast logs with label fstab option (321.35 KB, application/x-compressed-tar)
2010-03-30 07:16 UTC, Forgotten User 80STmjAMy_
Details

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Description Gabor Nyers 2009-12-24 15:58:38 UTC
Created attachment 334232 [details]
Screenshot of the error in a "Repair Installation" session

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091103 SUSE/3.5.5-1.1.2 Firefox/3.5.5

During initial installation the creation of an initrd fails with the following message:
Device block!9:0 not found in sysfs

The same happens when I try to "Repair Installation"

Details:
- I'm trying to create a new installation where the root filesystem is on a md raid1 device (/dev/md0)
- My box has 3 HDs
- /dev/md0 is configured with /dev/sda5 and /dev/sdc5, each partition 15GB
- /dev/md0 is formatted as ext4 and seem to have the correct content
- /boot is mounted from /dev/sda1

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Error message during install
2. Grub won't boot new installation
3.
Comment 1 Gabor Nyers 2009-12-24 16:00:20 UTC
See attached screenshot of the actual error
Comment 2 Jogchum Reitsma 2010-01-18 18:06:24 UTC
I have the same problem, with a configuration that is comparable to th OP's:

- /dev/sda1 formatted with ext2, mountpoint on /boot, 1 GB
- a raid-1 array from /dev/sda2 through /dev/sdd2, 10 GB, labeled 'root', mountpoint /
- a raid5 array from /dev/sda3 through /dev/sdd3, each 920 GB, net appr. 2.8 TB, labeled 'home', mountpoint /home

Both raid devices are mounted by label.

Partitioning and creating the arrays went during install with Yast without error messages, but during install of software I saw messages

Device block!9:0 not found in sysfs 

flying by.

When it was time for Yast to create the initrd, the message

Kernel image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop
Initrd image: /boot/initrd-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop
Root device: ext4-root (/dev/block/9:0) (mounted on / as ext4)
Device block!9:0 not found in sysfs

was given, and it appeared no initrd was created:

drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 jan 15 16:35 ./
drwxr-xr-x 22 root root 4096 jan 15 16:18 ../
-rw------- 1 root root 512 jan 15 16:35 backup_mbr
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1 jan 15 16:18 boot -> ./
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1236 okt 24 04:19 boot.readme
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 103289 okt 27 12:30 config-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 jan 15 16:35 grub/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 jan 15 16:20 initrd -> initrd-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop
drwx------ 2 root root 16384 jan 15 15:56 lost+found/
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 421376 jan 15 16:35 message
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 170143 okt 27 12:32 symvers-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1907577 okt 27 11:31 System.map-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 jan 15 16:20 vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4104416 okt 27 11:31 vmlinuz-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop

No need to say booting this arrangement fails.

After booting the system from another disk with 11.2, and assembling and mounting the raid fs'es (with goes flawlessly; here too the content seems correct), I tried to create the initrd by hand with

mount /dev/md0 /mnt/root
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/root/boot
mount --bind /dev /mnt/root/dev
chroot /mnt/root
mount /proc
mount /sys
mkinitrd

as suggested by the mkinitrd man page. But this gives the same error, and no initrd is created in the chrooted /boot.

Hardware is Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P mobo, AMD Phenom II X4 955 / 3.2 GHz Black Edition, memory 4GB OCZ Platinum Dual Channel DDR3 1333 MHz 1.65 V
Comment 4 Michal Marek 2010-01-22 11:47:26 UTC
Can you run
bash -vx /sbin/mkinitrd &>log
in the chroot and attach the log?
Comment 5 Gabor Nyers 2010-01-22 15:27:33 UTC
I'd need to re-install the box, which can take a few days given my current schedule.
Comment 6 Michal Marek 2010-01-22 15:48:01 UTC
Jogchum said in comment 2 that he also saw this when running mkinitrd in chroot after the system has been installed, which is why I set needinfo to him.
Comment 7 Gabor Nyers 2010-01-22 15:57:56 UTC
Ok. That was not entirely clear.
Comment 8 Jogchum Reitsma 2010-01-22 16:04:44 UTC
Created attachment 338332 [details]
Logfile of mkinitrd in chrooted environment
Comment 9 Jogchum Reitsma 2010-01-22 16:08:27 UTC
I have attached the log file. I'll be off during part of the weekend, so I'll be somewhat unresponsive. Back saterday evening

regards, Jogchum
Comment 10 Arnold Fleischer 2010-01-28 09:13:01 UTC
I have the same problem. Running 2 HDs as a raid1.
/dev/md0 as /
/dev/md1 as swap
/dev/md2 as /srv
I told fstab to use labels and grub uses mbr.

During installation I get the error "Device block!9:0 not found in sysfs" and grub won't boot.
I also tried Ext3 instead of Ext4.
Comment 11 Michal Marek 2010-01-28 09:15:40 UTC
Please do not touch the priority field.
Comment 12 Arnold Fleischer 2010-01-28 10:36:07 UTC
Sorry, I changed it back to the last state.

I tried again a new installation with my 2 HDs and software raid1 partitions.
But this time I used GPD as partition table and I told fstab to use the device names instead of the device labels. And now it works. I can also do a kernel update.Strange...I think GPD has nothing do to with it. Perhabs you need to tell fstab to use the device names.

The first time I tried the installation with raid1 arrays I used DOS as partition tabel and fstab used device names. The installation was fine. Then I changed fstab to use device labels and the system was fine. I tried different RAID failures and everything worked like expected. But then I did a kernel update and after reboot I got the errors.

Perhaps this information is useful. I have now a working system, but I would still like to use device labels.
Comment 13 Jogchum Reitsma 2010-02-05 17:29:13 UTC
Hi Michal,

Any progress on this one? Status is not NEEDINFO, so I take it you don't expect anything from me right now.

I won't touch the priority field, but is None the accurate priority for a failing installation?
Comment 14 Michal Marek 2010-02-05 19:55:30 UTC
Sorry, no progress. I'm on vacation for the next week, I'll look into the mkinitrd bugs after that.
Comment 15 Michal Marek 2010-02-19 13:46:00 UTC
There are two bugs in there:
(In reply to comment #8)
> Created an attachment (id=338332) [details]
> Logfile of mkinitrd in chrooted environment

There are two bugs in there:
1) mkinitrd does not understand the LABEL=root entry in your fstab
2) the beautify_blockdev() function, which is used as a fallback, returns the /dev/block/9:0, which the rest of the functions can't cope with. This is due to a new udev version probably, /sbin/udevadm info -q symlink now prints this symlink as the first entry.
Comment 16 Jogchum Reitsma 2010-02-19 18:05:50 UTC
@Michal Marek: Hope you had a good holiday!

So I take it that I should change fstab to identifying the array by its device name? Which has some risks mixing the two arrays, I understand. But i'll give it a try, of course.

Will the LABEL= identifier be understood by mkinitrd in the near future?

regards, Jogchum
Comment 17 Gabor Nyers 2010-02-19 20:29:27 UTC
(In reply to comment #16)
> Will the LABEL= identifier be understood by mkinitrd in the near future?
I very much hope so... For more than 2 years now I'm using nothing else but filesystem LABELs in /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/menu.lst. No matter how the disk layout or device names look (esp. when virtualizing), it _always_ works.

Regards,
Gábor
Comment 18 Michal Marek 2010-02-19 20:32:32 UTC
Yes, using the device name should be a workaround. I would like to fix LABEL= support, but I'm not giving any promise as to when it's going to happen.
Comment 19 Forgotten User 80STmjAMy_ 2010-03-30 07:08:31 UTC
Using device name i not a workaround. At least for my setup.

I tried with different fstab options. LAbel, device name, uuid. I also tried
putting /boot partition on plain normal non raid volume(sda1).

Here's my to be setup:

6 HDs (sd[a,b,c,d,e,f,g])

/boot: sda1,sdb1 -> RAID1
/: {(sda2,sdb2,sdc2) RAID0 , (sdd2,sde2,sdf2)RAID0} -> RAID1
/home:{(sda3,sdb3,sdc3) RAID0 , (sdd3,sde3,sdf3)RAID0} -> RAID1

As said I tried with different setups for /boot partition. None worked.

I'm using a minimal server install with some additional packages. 

Boot loader is installed to MBR.

I have yast log files if needed.
Comment 20 Forgotten User 80STmjAMy_ 2010-03-30 07:15:06 UTC
Created attachment 351317 [details]
yast logs upon install
Comment 21 Forgotten User 80STmjAMy_ 2010-03-30 07:16:39 UTC
Created attachment 351319 [details]
yast logs with label fstab option
Comment 22 Felix Miata 2010-05-15 16:27:29 UTC
This seems to overlap or be a dupe of bug 586044. I just installed M6 where M2 had been installed previously with success, but later updated, and initrd creation for newer kernel failed. Manual initrd creation also failed with "Device block!9:X not found in sysfs". Mkinitrd succeeded when I replaced mounting of / by-label with /dev/md3, and the initrd it created results in boot success.
Comment 23 Michal Marek 2012-06-18 14:21:50 UTC
I believe this is fixed in 11.3 and later, please reopen if this is not the case.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 583424 ***