Ext3 as root filesystem?

[Andy Green]

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On Saturday 06 December 2003 14:57, Leonard den Ottolander wrote:

>  These kind of actions are (usually) unnecessary and should be avoided
> unless you have a specific reason to do so. Ext3 is the file system of
> choice on Red Hat and Fedora, so things are set up to "just work".

Its clear you're right.

>  Are you using a standard Red Hat kernel? Then both the initrd and the
> module layout should work as is. If you compiled your own all you should
> have to do is a mkinitrd. Path layout should be usable as well.

Yes, it is 2.4.22-1.2129.nptl.  The kernel is taken straight from the binary 
kernel RPM... I install it into the root filesystem and then copy it and some 
modules over into the initrd filesystem.

This is my linuxrc modified from the Fedora one:

#!/bin/nash
echo
echo Mounting /proc filesystem
mount -t proc /proc /proc
echo Loading nbd.$KERNMODULESUFFIX module
insmod 
/lib/modules/$KERNELVERSION/unsupported/drivers/block/nbd.$KERNMODULESUFFIX 
echo Loading mii networking module" >> $RHINITMOUNT/linuxrc
insmod /lib/modules/$KERNELVERSION/kernel/drivers/net/mii.$KERNMODULESUFFIX
echo Loading via-rhine networking module
insmod 
/lib/modules/$KERNELVERSION/kernel/drivers/net/via-rhine.$KERNMODULESUFFIX
echo Loading ext3 modules
insmod /lib/modules/$KERNELVERSION/kernel/fs/jbd.$KERNMODULESUFFIX
insmod /lib/modules/$KERNELVERSION/kernel/fs/ext3.$KERNMODULESUFFIX
echo getting network settings from DHCP
/bin/dhcpcd -t 5 -h tinycat eth0 
echo Looking for nbd server on $4:$5
/bin/nbd-client $4 $5 /dev/nd0
echo 0x2b00 > /proc/sys/kernel/real-root-dev
echo End of linuxrc

> > EXT2-fs warning (device nbd(43,0)): ext2_read_super: mounting ext3
> > filesystem as ext2
>
>  Are you sure you actually transformed the file system from ext2 to ext3
> (tune2fs -j -c 0 -i 0 /dev/<partition>)? What does tune2fs -l
> /dev/<partition> show you?

I used mkfs.ext3 to creat the filesystem, so I did not perform this 
transformation action.  I am able to mount the resulting filesystem as ext3 
via loopback on my laptop, for example.

tune2fs 1.34 (25-Jul-2003)
Filesystem volume name:   <none>
Last mounted on:          <not available>
Filesystem UUID:          1c6a4d57-c00d-4635-bb41-d7f0b0a2bfbd
Filesystem magic number:  0xEF53
Filesystem revision #:    1 (dynamic)
Filesystem features:      has_journal filetype sparse_super
Default mount options:    (none)
Filesystem state:         clean
Errors behavior:          Continue
Filesystem OS type:       Linux
Inode count:              87720
Block count:              350000
Reserved block count:     0
Free blocks:              123263
Free inodes:              57972
First block:              1
Block size:               1024
Fragment size:            1024
Blocks per group:         8192
Fragments per group:      8192
Inodes per group:         2040
Inode blocks per group:   255
Filesystem created:       Sat Dec  6 14:35:44 2003
Last mount time:          Sat Dec  6 15:02:32 2003
Last write time:          Sat Dec  6 15:02:35 2003
Mount count:              1
Maximum mount count:      31
Last checked:             Sat Dec  6 15:02:32 2003
Check interval:           15552000 (6 months)
Next check after:         Thu Jun  3 16:02:32 2004
Reserved blocks uid:      0 (user root)
Reserved blocks gid:      0 (group root)
First inode:              11
Inode size:               128
Journal inode:            8
Default directory hash:   tea
Directory Hash Seed:      11b6998a-a3d6-46f9-8da3-e54fc35c7438

>  The mount command itself, so the fact that the file system is described as
> ext3 in /etc/fstab.

Having the following generated into /etc/fstab (on both the initrd and root 
filesystems, just in case):

/dev/nd0          /       ext3   defaults 
none                    /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0

gets me the following from the /etc/rc.sysinit

Setting hostname localhost:     [OK}
Checking root filesystem
/dev/nd0 is mounted.  e2fsck: Cannot continue, aborting.
                                            [FAILED]
then it drops to a repair shell.

>  I am sorry I have to agree with you on this ;-) . Ext3 should "just work".

No doubt there is some stupid thing I am doing... as usual I am operating at 
or beyond what I know how to do :-)  its the only way to learn new things... 
but even so this is being quite painful...

- -Andy
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