9:28 a.m.
On Thu, 2005-10-06 at 17:24 +0100, James Pearson wrote:
There has been an on going issue with installing grub on an XFS
partition - anaconda will hang at the installing boot loader stage as
grub 'spins'.
The attached patch for 'booty' works round this problem by remounting
the XFS file system that contains /boot as read-only and then as
read-write before running the grub install command.
This patch replaces the current XFS freeze/thaw work round that fails to
work (a lot) more often than not.
This feels like a hack for the fact that xfs_freeze doesn't work as it
was designed to -- it is specifically for things which need the contents
on disk to actually be what the kernel thinks is there. And the
continued need of random hacks like this make me more and more inclined
to just disallow the use of XFS as a bootable filesystem.
Jeremy
9:39 a.m.
New subject: Anaconda, grub and XFS
On Friday 07 October 2005 09:28, Jeremy Katz wrote:
On Thu, 2005-10-06 at 17:24 +0100, James Pearson wrote:
> There has been an on going issue with installing grub on an XFS
> partition - anaconda will hang at the installing boot loader stage as
> grub 'spins'.
>
> The attached patch for 'booty' works round this problem by remounting
> the XFS file system that contains /boot as read-only and then as
> read-write before running the grub install command.
>
> This patch replaces the current XFS freeze/thaw work round that fails to
> work (a lot) more often than not.
This feels like a hack for the fact that xfs_freeze doesn't work as it
was designed to -- it is specifically for things which need the contents
on disk to actually be what the kernel thinks is there. And the
continued need of random hacks like this make me more and more inclined
to just disallow the use of XFS as a bootable filesystem.
Jeremy
I regularly use XFS as a filesystem for / and /home and other areas but
because of this bug i always use ext3 for / and really for the use of boot
and the size of the files in there /boot is much better off being on ext3
so i would say make it so /boot has to be ext3. then you should only hit
this issue if someone decides to forgo a /boot partition
Dennis
2:51 p.m.
New subject: Anaconda, grub and XFS
On Fri, 2005-10-07 at 09:39 -0500, Dennis Gilmore wrote:
On Friday 07 October 2005 09:28, Jeremy Katz wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-10-06 at 17:24 +0100, James Pearson wrote:
> > There has been an on going issue with installing grub on an XFS
> > partition - anaconda will hang at the installing boot loader stage as
> > grub 'spins'.
> >
> > The attached patch for 'booty' works round this problem by remounting
> > the XFS file system that contains /boot as read-only and then as
> > read-write before running the grub install command.
> >
> > This patch replaces the current XFS freeze/thaw work round that fails to
> > work (a lot) more often than not.
>
> This feels like a hack for the fact that xfs_freeze doesn't work as it
> was designed to -- it is specifically for things which need the contents
> on disk to actually be what the kernel thinks is there. And the
> continued need of random hacks like this make me more and more inclined
> to just disallow the use of XFS as a bootable filesystem.
>
> Jeremy
I regularly use XFS as a filesystem for / and /home and other areas but
because of this bug i always use ext3 for / and really for the use of boot
and the size of the files in there /boot is much better off being on ext3
so i would say make it so /boot has to be ext3. then you should only hit
this issue if someone decides to forgo a /boot partition
Dennis
I disagree. XFS can be used as a filesystem for /boot and there is no
reason that Fedora should impose artificial limitations on the use of
XFS. Don't limit the use of a filesystem because GRUB makes some
incorrect assumptions about being able to read a block device image
while a filesystem is mounted and actively being written to. Why not
have anaconda force users who want to use XFS for /boot to setup grub
post install rather than have anaconda not allow /boot to be XFS.
Daniel Spratlen
4:35 p.m.
New subject: Anaconda, grub and XFS
On Friday 07 October 2005 01:51pm, Daniel Spratlen wrote:
On Fri, 2005-10-07 at 09:39 -0500, Dennis Gilmore wrote:
[SNIP]
> I regularly use XFS as a filesystem for / and /home and other
areas
> but because of this bug i always use ext3 for / and really for the use
> of boot and the size of the files in there /boot is much better off
> being on ext3 so i would say make it so /boot has to be ext3. then you
> should only hit this issue if someone decides to forgo a /boot partition
>
> Dennis
I disagree. XFS can be used as a filesystem for /boot and there is no
reason that Fedora should impose artificial limitations on the use of
XFS. Don't limit the use of a filesystem because GRUB makes some
incorrect assumptions about being able to read a block device image
while a filesystem is mounted and actively being written to. Why not
have anaconda force users who want to use XFS for /boot to setup grub
post install rather than have anaconda not allow /boot to be XFS.
Or, better yet, why not fix GRUB to not make such assumptions?
--
Lamont R. Peterson <lamont(a)gurulabs.com>
Senior Instructor
Guru Labs, L.C. [ http://www.GuruLabs.com/ ]
6 a.m.
New subject: Anaconda, grub and XFS
On 10/7/05, Jeremy Katz <katzj(a)redhat.com> wrote:
On Thu, 2005-10-06 at 17:24 +0100, James Pearson wrote:
> There has been an on going issue with installing grub on an XFS
> partition - anaconda will hang at the installing boot loader stage as
> grub 'spins'.
>
> The attached patch for 'booty' works round this problem by remounting
> the XFS file system that contains /boot as read-only and then as
> read-write before running the grub install command.
>
> This patch replaces the current XFS freeze/thaw work round that fails to
> work (a lot) more often than not.
This feels like a hack for the fact that xfs_freeze doesn't work as it
was designed to -- it is specifically for things which need the contents
on disk to actually be what the kernel thinks is there. And the
continued need of random hacks like this make me more and more inclined
to just disallow the use of XFS as a bootable filesystem.
But this is a 'hack' that replaces a 'hack' that doesn't work ... so
the total number of hacks in anaconda won't increase :-)
Anyway, as suggested, I've submitted a bug/rfe (#170127)
Thanks
James Pearson
8:45 p.m.
New subject: Anaconda, grub and XFS
On Sat, 2005-10-08 at 12:00 +0100, James Pearson wrote:
On 10/7/05, Jeremy Katz <katzj(a)redhat.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-10-06 at 17:24 +0100, James Pearson wrote:
> > There has been an on going issue with installing grub on an XFS
> > partition - anaconda will hang at the installing boot loader stage as
> > grub 'spins'.
> >
> > The attached patch for 'booty' works round this problem by remounting
> > the XFS file system that contains /boot as read-only and then as
> > read-write before running the grub install command.
> >
> > This patch replaces the current XFS freeze/thaw work round that fails to
> > work (a lot) more often than not.
>
> This feels like a hack for the fact that xfs_freeze doesn't work as it
> was designed to -- it is specifically for things which need the contents
> on disk to actually be what the kernel thinks is there. And the
> continued need of random hacks like this make me more and more inclined
> to just disallow the use of XFS as a bootable filesystem.
But this is a 'hack' that replaces a 'hack' that doesn't work ... so
the total number of hacks in anaconda won't increase :-)
Yes, but it's a hack that was added at the explicit request of the XFS
developers with a "this will fix the problems". And having to
constantly change it because they don't want to have the same semantics
as all of the other filesystems which are even pseudo-supported is a
waste of time.
Jeremy
6833
days inactive
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5 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
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Daniel Spratlen -
Dennis Gilmore -
James Pearson -
Jeremy Katz -
Lamont R. Peterson