[SOLVED] Booting Slack LVM over LUKS from USB SATA Enclosure

BashTin · 05-20-2015, 08:27 PM

Seems a very long time since I had any problems, either I was not tinkering or I am getting more competent with Slack

So I have been tinkering again. Due to some issues with my MOBO I have my second 1 GIG HD in a USB enclosure which I wish to use as an independent bootable drive where I can copy my home dir to and copy system updates too, in effect a mirror. I know I can use RAID-1 but the problem with that is that it immediately mirrors any accidental deletions or other errors I may make.

On sdb I did a fresh install of Slackware 14.1, using LVM over LUKS. To make the initrd I used the initrd_command_generator.sh. The command I used was

Code:

mkinitrd -c -k 3.10.17-smp -f reiserfs -r /dev/slackcrypto_backup/root -m usb-storage:ehci-hcd:ehci-pci:ohci-hcd:reiserfs -C /dev/sdb2 -L -u -o /boot/initrdsdb2.gz

Then I went into the BIOS and changed the first bootable HDD to sdb.

But it does not boot correctly. It gets as far as unlocking LUKS and complains along the lines of

FROM MEMORY

Code:

LUKS unlocking device /dev/sdb2 not available
mounting /dev/slackcrypto_backup/root on /mnt failed no such file or directory
..................
..................
..................
..................
..................
scsi: 9.0.0.0 [sdb] WDC-EZEX-22BN5A0
19533525168 512 byte logical blocks
..................
..................
..................
..................
..................
sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3

So the problem seems clear. Luks seems to attempting to unlock sdb2 before it is fully initialised. After the error I am dropped to the command line and I can indeed unlock sdb2 'manually'and open the LVM partitions too.

Is my diagnosis correct? If so how can I delay LUKS (or speed up sbd initialisation).

Any advice as always greatly appreciated.

BashTin

fsLeg · 05-21-2015, 02:39 AM

Did you try `rootdelay` kernel option or `WAIT` mkinitrd.conf option? It takes a few seconds for USB devices to appear in /dev.

enorbet · 05-21-2015, 05:59 AM

I can't help but wonder why you don't save yourself trouble and also enable full speed by going all SATA? Even the enclosure you have now is likely easily outfitted with SATA or eSATA connectors.

BashTin · 05-21-2015, 06:46 AM

fsLeg, that is just what was required, thanks.

enorbet, they are sata and the enclosure is a sata enclosure. Just wondered why you thought they were not?

I am using an enclosure because I am pretty certain that there is some input/output issues with at least some of the other sata ports on the mobo. Would get frequent i/o errors, drive not being detected, boot up problems, etc. I checked this by swapping the hdds around on the mobo and the problems were still there. I took out the extra drive and the problems went away. So I really bought the enclosure to double check the mobo/drive and with the enclosure there are no more issues.

BashTin