rescue mode has issues

[Chuck Anderson]

I have a dual-boot system running F7 on one VolumeGroup and rawhide on 
another, with two separate /boot partitions.  There were a few 
problems with this setup:

1. Anaconda labeled /dev/sda3 as /boot even though /dev/sda2 already 
has this label.

2. The rescue image doesn't offer to mount the rawhide partition, 
which is installed to an encrypted PV.  Perhaps it should offer to 
open encrypted volumes so it can search them for Fedora installs to 
mount.

3. I did a manual cryptsetup/vgchange/mount for the rawhide install.  
I needed to add entries to /etc/grub.conf and run "grub-install" to 
put grub on the boot sector of /dev/sda3.  My first attempt was to 
chroot to /mnt/sysimage and run grub-install there:

sh-3.2# grub-install /dev/sda3
Could not find device for /boot

4.  I thought the filesystem label was the problem, so I tried to 
check the labels:

sh-3.2# e2label /dev/sda2
/boot
sh-3.2# e2label /dev/sda3
e2label: Filesystem has unsupported feature(s) while trying to open 
/dev/sda3
Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.

5. Interesting.  So I tried from outside the chroot.  Same results:

sh-3.2# exit
exit
sh-3.2# e2label /dev/sda2
/boot
sh-3.2# e2label /dev/sda3
e2label: Filesystem has unsupported feature(s) while trying to open 
/dev/sda3
Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.

6. I thought maybe the filesystem was corrupted, so I tried a manual 
fsck:

sh-3.2# umount /mnt/sysimage/boot
sh-3.2# fsck /dev/sda3
fsck 1.40.4 (31-Dec-2007)
WARNING: couldn't open /etc/fstab: No such file or directory
e2fsck 1.40.4 (31-Dec-2007)
fsck.ext3: Filesystem has unsupported feature(s) while trying to open 
/dev/sda3

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 
filesystem.  If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the 
superblock is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an 
alternate superblock:
    e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

7.  Weird.  I thought I'd try to do the grub-install from outside the 
chroot anyway:

sh-3.2# grub-install /dev/sda3
/sbin/grub: Not found.

8. It appears that grub was moved to /usr/sbin and grub-install wasn't 
updated.  Symlinking fixes it:

sh-3.2# ln -s /usr/sbin/grub /sbin/grub
sh-3.2# mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/sysimage/boot
sh-3.2# grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/sysimage /dev/sda3
The file /mnt/sysimage/boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly.

Shall I file bugs on all these issues?

[Orion Poplawski]

Chuck Anderson wrote:
> Shall I file bugs on all these issues?

I filed https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=429758 against the 
installer not being able to access F7 filesystem labels.

This prevents upgrade installs as well.

[Eric Sandeen]

Chuck Anderson wrote:
> I have a dual-boot system running F7 on one VolumeGroup and rawhide on 
> another, with two separate /boot partitions.  There were a few 
> problems with this setup:

...
> Interesting.  So I tried from outside the chroot.  Same results:
>
> sh-3.2# exit
> exit
> sh-3.2# e2label /dev/sda2
> /boot
> sh-3.2# e2label /dev/sda3
> e2label: Filesystem has unsupported feature(s) while trying to open 
> /dev/sda3
> Shall I file bugs on all these issues?

Sure, at least for the extents flag problem, please do & assign to me.
It may have an anaconda component but I'd assign to kernel for now.

Thanks,
-Eric

(btw I also saw the duplicate label problem...)