Software raid broken in recent kernels

[Dennis Jacobfeuerborn]

I can't get recent kernels to boot because they don't seem to find 
necessary devices ("no devices found for /dev/mdX"). The status is as follows:

works -> kernel-2.6.25-0.87.rc3.git4.fc9
fails -> kernel-2.6.25-0.101.rc4.git3.fc9
fails -> kernel-2.6.25-0.105.rc5.fc9

I checked bugzilla but couldn't find any relevant kernel bugs. Should I 
file one or is this already known?

Regards,
   Dennis

[Dave Jones]

On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 07:32:20PM +0100, Dennis Jacobfeuerborn wrote:
>  I can't get recent kernels to boot because they don't seem to
> find 
>  necessary devices ("no devices found for /dev/mdX"). The status is as follows:
>  
>  works -> kernel-2.6.25-0.87.rc3.git4.fc9
>  fails -> kernel-2.6.25-0.101.rc4.git3.fc9
>  fails -> kernel-2.6.25-0.105.rc5.fc9
>  
>  I checked bugzilla but couldn't find any relevant kernel bugs. Should I 
>  file one or is this already known? 
I don't recall anything in md changing recently that could explain this.
I'm more inclined to believe it's another mkinitrd bug.
Could you pull apart the working/broken initrds and compare them to see
if there's something obviously different?

	Dave

-- 
http://www.codemonkey.org.uk

[Josh Boyer]

On Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:40:30 -0400
Dave Jones <davej(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:

>  On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 07:32:20PM +0100, Dennis Jacobfeuerborn
> wrote:
>   > I can't get recent kernels to boot because they don't seem to find 
>   > necessary devices ("no devices found for /dev/mdX"). The status is as
> follows:
>   > 
>   > works -> kernel-2.6.25-0.87.rc3.git4.fc9
>   > fails -> kernel-2.6.25-0.101.rc4.git3.fc9
>   > fails -> kernel-2.6.25-0.105.rc5.fc9
>   > 
>   > I checked bugzilla but couldn't find any relevant kernel bugs. Should I 
>   > file one or is this already known?
>  
>  I don't recall anything in md changing recently that could explain this.
>  I'm more inclined to believe it's another mkinitrd bug.
>  Could you pull apart the working/broken initrds and compare them to see
>  if there's something obviously different? 
There's a mkinitrd bug open on this already.  Will has been beating on
it pretty hard.

josh

[Bruno Wolff III]

On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 14:40:30 -0400,
  Dave Jones <davej(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 07:32:20PM +0100, Dennis Jacobfeuerborn
> wrote:
>   > I can't get recent kernels to boot because they don't seem to find 
>   > necessary devices ("no devices found for /dev/mdX"). The status is as
> follows:
>   > 
>   > works -> kernel-2.6.25-0.87.rc3.git4.fc9
>   > fails -> kernel-2.6.25-0.101.rc4.git3.fc9
>   > fails -> kernel-2.6.25-0.105.rc5.fc9
>   > 
>   > I checked bugzilla but couldn't find any relevant kernel bugs. Should I 
>   > file one or is this already known?
>  
>  I don't recall anything in md changing recently that could explain this.
>  I'm more inclined to believe it's another mkinitrd bug.
>  Could you pull apart the working/broken initrds and compare them to see
>  if there's something obviously different? 
You might take a look at 435228. I have been having success with software
raid (1). I have been having troubles with encryption over software raid.
Make sure your mkinitrd is up to date. There have been occasional bad
versions but the latest (6.0.34) should work for software raid without
encryption.

[Dennis Jacobfeuerborn]

Dave Jones wrote:
>  On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 07:32:20PM +0100, Dennis Jacobfeuerborn
> wrote:
>    >  I can't get recent kernels to boot because they don't seem to find
>    >  necessary devices ("no devices found for /dev/mdX"). The status is as
> follows:
>    >
>    >  works ->  kernel-2.6.25-0.87.rc3.git4.fc9
>    >  fails ->  kernel-2.6.25-0.101.rc4.git3.fc9
>    >  fails ->  kernel-2.6.25-0.105.rc5.fc9
>    >
>    >  I checked bugzilla but couldn't find any relevant kernel bugs. Should I
>    >  file one or is this already known?
>
>  I don't recall anything in md changing recently that could explain this.
>  I'm more inclined to believe it's another mkinitrd bug.
>  Could you pull apart the working/broken initrds and compare them to see
>  if there's something obviously different? 
The only obvious difference is that the newer kernels no longer load sd_mod 
and the references to sd_mod from modules.alias have been removed.

BTW these are simple unencrypted raid-1 devices:

[root@nexus t]# uname -a
Linux nexus 2.6.25-0.78.rc3.git1.fc9 #1 SMP Fri Feb 29 02:19:15 EST 2008 
i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
[root@nexus t]# rpm -q mkinitrd
mkinitrd-6.0.34-1.fc9.i386
[root@nexus t]# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4]
md0 : active raid1 sda2[0] sdb2[1]
       104320 blocks [2/2] [UU]

md1 : active raid1 sda3[0] sdb3[1]
       1052160 blocks [2/2] [UU]

md2 : active raid1 sda5[0] sdb5[1]
       307628544 blocks [2/2] [UU]

unused devices: <none>

Relevant entries from fstab:
/dev/md2            /                       ext3    defaults,noatime 1 1
/dev/md0            /boot                   ext3    defaults,noatime 1 2
/dev/md1            swap                    swap    defaults        0 0

Relevant entries from grub.conf:
title Fedora (2.6.25-0.105.rc5.fc9)
	root (hd0,1)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.25-0.105.rc5.fc9 ro root=/dev/md2
	initrd /initrd-2.6.25-0.105.rc5.fc9.img
title Fedora (2.6.25-0.78.rc3.git1.fc9)
	root (hd0,1)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.25-0.78.rc3.git1.fc9 ro root=/dev/md2
	initrd /initrd-2.6.25-0.78.rc3.git1.fc9.img

Regards,
   Dennis

[Colorado Rob]

Same here.  /dev/md1 isn't initialized during boot with the last two
kernels.  The last kernel that works for me is 2.6.25-0.93.rc4.fc9.


# mdadm.conf written out by anaconda
DEVICE partitions
MAILADDR root
ARRAY /dev/md0 level=raid1 num-devices=2
uuid=e75de800:31257732:ecaedc25:29b17f1a
ARRAY /dev/md1 level=raid1 num-devices=2
uuid=4bce5ece:cd293f5a:42eb9fc2:95021c36

[Bruno Wolff III]

On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 01:50:49 +0100,
  Dennis Jacobfeuerborn <d.jacobfeuerborn(a)conversis.de&gt; wrote:
>  
>  The only obvious difference is that the newer kernels no longer load sd_mod 
>  and the references to sd_mod from modules.alias have been removed. 
I doubt it is the kernels. What probably matters is what version of mkinitrd
was installed when you installed the kernels. I fixed up one system by
reinstalling the kernel with a different version of mkinitrd.
You might try reinstalling the problem kernels with an up to date mkinitrd
and see if that fixes things for you.

The reason things work this way is the initrd image is custom built for
your hardware and filesystem configuration when the kernel is installed.
It isn't just extracted from the rpm.

[Dennis Jacobfeuerborn]

Dave Jones wrote:
>  On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 07:32:20PM +0100, Dennis Jacobfeuerborn
> wrote:
>    >  I can't get recent kernels to boot because they don't seem to find
>    >  necessary devices ("no devices found for /dev/mdX"). The status is as
> follows:
>    >
>    >  works ->  kernel-2.6.25-0.87.rc3.git4.fc9
>    >  fails ->  kernel-2.6.25-0.101.rc4.git3.fc9
>    >  fails ->  kernel-2.6.25-0.105.rc5.fc9
>    >
>    >  I checked bugzilla but couldn't find any relevant kernel bugs. Should I
>    >  file one or is this already known?
>
>  I don't recall anything in md changing recently that could explain this.
>  I'm more inclined to believe it's another mkinitrd bug.
>  Could you pull apart the working/broken initrds and compare them to see
>  if there's something obviously different? 
Filed here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=437231

Regards,
   Dennis