install on degraded raid1 does not boot, drops to initramfs shell
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
initramfs-tools (Ubuntu) |
Invalid
|
Critical
|
Clint Byrum | ||
Natty |
Invalid
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
mdadm (Ubuntu) |
Fix Released
|
Critical
|
Clint Byrum | ||
Natty |
Invalid
|
Critical
|
Clint Byrum |
Bug Description
Yesterday I did a fresh install of Natty amd64. I used the PXE installer so all packages are up to date right after installation.
I partitioned the disk to have two software raid1 devices. One for swap, one for / with xfs.
Installation completed successfully, grub was installed to MBR.
The system has a >95% failure rate in booting.
At first it would hang on a purple screen. I blindly typed "reboot" at this screen, which worked. So I figured out that it would boot to a shell but not show it.
Then, I added "nosplash" to the kernel command line and removed "quiet".
This revealed that the system drops into a BusyBox shell labled "initramfs" when booting fails.
Unfortunately, I cannot tell whether it shows any errors on screen because the BusyBox shell resets the screen buffer, CTRL+PageUp does not work.
Please help me how to figure out what is wrong. Either tell me which log file I can search for the very first booting messages OR release a package update which fixes the screen-clearing of the initramfs shell.
If you do that I will take the effort of doing the 10-20 boot attempts to get to the point where I can update the packages...
If the initramfs-
==== SRU Justification ====
IMPACT: Users who install on a degraded RAID1 or who lose a disk drive will be unable to boot.
TEST CASE:
1. Install a natty system with root on a software RAID1
2. After booting once, shutdown
3. remove one disk entirely
4. boot the system, it may drop to initramfs, or it may boot degraded
5. reboot, this time it should reliably drop to initramfs
6. poweroff and add the disk in again, it should now boot degraded
7. install updated mdadm
8. repeat steps 2-5 , it should pass and NOT drop to initramfs
REGRESSION POTENTIAL: The fix that has been uploaded to oneiric already takes care to err on the side of responding to degraded arrays. Still mdadm is very sensitive and so probably needs a bit of extra testing to ensure that it works properly, including passing the usual RAID1 iso install tests (with the additional step of installing the mdadm package from proposed right after install)
Changed in ubuntu: | |
importance: | Undecided → Critical |
summary: |
- Fresh natty install on raid1 does not boot, drops to initramfs shell + install on degraded raid1 does not boot, drops to initramfs shell |
Changed in initramfs-tools (Ubuntu): | |
status: | Confirmed → In Progress |
status: | In Progress → Invalid |
Changed in mdadm (Ubuntu): | |
status: | Confirmed → In Progress |
assignee: | nobody → Clint Byrum (clint-fewbar) |
Changed in initramfs-tools (Ubuntu Natty): | |
status: | New → Invalid |
Changed in mdadm (Ubuntu Natty): | |
status: | New → Triaged |
importance: | Undecided → Critical |
assignee: | nobody → Clint Byrum (clint-fewbar) |
description: | updated |
tags: | added: testcase |
Notice that I also tried "rootdelay=100" and "roowait" as kernel parameters, both do not help. In fact it does seem to ignore them, there is no visible delay before it drops to shell.