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persistent device naming problem

Hello,

I have a problem defining persistent device naming on a Debian Lenny server.

I have:
RAID1 controller on the server machine with two SCSI disks.
external storage with RAID5. I have / mount on the first partition on the server SCSI disk and /storage mount on the external storage.

I'm experiencing a problem: The system recognizes the system disk (RAID 1), as sda or sdb – randomly.
I want: To control the recognition, and tell the system that sda (sda1) will always be the system disk.
The motivation: GRUB is configured to work with sda, and when the system disk doesn't, boot process fails, and I end up in the initramfs shell-like interface.

Code:

Booting the kernel

.

.

.

mount:mounting /dev on /root/dev failed: No such file or directory 

mount:mounting /sys on /root/sys failed: No such file or directory 

mount:mounting /proc on /root/proc failed: No such file or directory 

target filesystem does not have /sbin/init . No init found. Try passing init=bootarg.

(initramfs):  <--this is the prompt I get

Some more information:

Code:

# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 73.4 GB, 73406611456 bytes 

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 8924 cylinders 

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes 

Disk identifier: 0x000b1511 



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System 

/dev/sda1  *          1        8681    69730101  83  Linux 

/dev/sda2            8682        8924    1951897+  82  Linux swap / Solaris 



Disk /dev/sdb: 1497.3 GB, 1497314099200 bytes 

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 182038 cylinders 

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes 

Disk identifier: 0x8aa13146 



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System 

/dev/sdb1              1      182038  1462220203+  83  Linux

GRUB boot options:

Code:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-2-686 root=/dev/sda1 ro quiet

Sometimes I can boot the system when I change the 'root=' option to /dev/sdb1, and if I'm lucky enough the system disk is recognized as /dev/sdb and then I can boot.

What I tried to do:
1. Tried to configure /etc/fstab with UUID option (instead of mentioning sda or sdb).
The following is the contents of /etc/fstab (scsi disks are defined too - with UUID)

Code:

proc            /proc          proc    defaults        0      0 

UUID=18fa3d1a-b401-4274-8bb5-35df0847f413  /  ext3  errors=remount-ro 0 1 

#/dev/sda1      /              ext3    errors=remount-ro 0      1 

/dev/sda2      none            swap    sw              0      0 

/dev/hda        /media/cdrom0  udf,iso9660 user,noauto    0      0 

/dev/fd0        /media/floppy0  auto    rw,user,noauto  0      0 

UUID=0148f6d2-d3fd-47c4-b0da-c4e6f3520460  /storage/  ext3  defaults  0  0 

#/dev/sdb1      /storage        ext3    defaults        0        0

2. I tried solving the problem by creating a new rules file under /etc/udev/rules.d so that the file name will be read first (in lexical order).
This is the file content - (each rule in one line of course, the attributes and values are taken from udevadm info –name=<dev-name> --attribute-walk ,when the disks names was O.K)

Code:

#rule for /dev/sda  (server disk [RAID1])

SUBSYSTEM=="block" , ATTR{size}=="143372288" , SUBSYSTEMS=="scsi" , ATTRS{model}=="SERVERAID" , NAME="sda"



#rule for /dev/sda1 (first bootable partition on server)

SUBSYSTEM=="block" , ATTR{size}=="139460202" , SUBSYSTEMS=="block" , ATTRS{size}=="143372288" , NAME="sda1"



#rule for /dev/sda2 (swap partition on server)

SUBSYSTEM=="block" , ATTR{size}=="3903795" , SUBSYSTEMS=="block" , ATTRS{size}=="143372288" , NAME="sda2"



#rule for /dev/sdb (external storage)

SUBSYSTEM=="block" , ATTR{size}=="2924441600" , SUBSYSTEMS=="scsi" , ATTRS{model}=="1726-4xx  FAStT" , NAME="sdb"



#rule for /dev/sdb1 (external storage, has only one partition)

SUBSYSTEM=="block" , ATTR{size}=="2924440407" , SUBSYSTEMS=="block" , ATTRS{size}=="2924441600" , NAME="sdb1"

when I reboot the system again I get the same problem!!

One more important question:
What is the reason Linux is not recognizing the system disk always as /dev/sda?

I will appreciate your help,
D-niX.

Dirty solution :

Blacklist the sdb scsi controller module. Then make it loaded in some rc.local, and mount it in rc.local too.

Anyway, what you did seems correct to me, although i think your udev rules may have to be tweaked furthermore, adding UUID parameter.
I don't know how to do it.

Though about the fact that maybe both of your scsi cards uses the same driver/module.

I remember i had this kind of problem with audio cards.

Show us the output of :
lsmod

Code:

lsmod



Module                  Size  Used by

ipv6                  235396  24

loop                  12748  0

snd_pcm                62660  0

snd_timer              17800  1 snd_pcm

snd                    45636  2 snd_pcm,snd_timer

soundcore              6368  1 snd

snd_page_alloc          7816  1 snd_pcm

pcspkr                  2432  0

serio_raw              4740  0

psmouse                32336  0

button                  6096  0

i2c_i801                7920  0

rng_core                3940  0

i2c_core              19828  1 i2c_i801

e752x_edac            10824  0

shpchp                25528  0

pci_hotplug            23460  1 shpchp

edac_core              36144  1 e752x_edac

evdev                  8000  0

ext3                  105576  2

jbd                    39476  1 ext3

mbcache                7108  1 ext3

ide_cd_mod            27684  0

cdrom                  30176  1 ide_cd_mod

ide_pci_generic        3908  0 [permanent]

piix                    6568  0 [permanent]

ide_core              96168  3 ide_cd_mod,ide_pci_generic,piix

sg                    26964  0

sd_mod                22200  5

ata_generic            4676  0

libata                140448  1 ata_generic

dock                    8304  1 libata

floppy                47844  0

qla2xxx              151080  1

firmware_class          6816  1 qla2xxx

scsi_transport_fc      35908  1 qla2xxx

ips                    36380  2

uhci_hcd              18672  0

ehci_hcd              28428  0

scsi_tgt              11272  1 scsi_transport_fc

tg3                    84676  0

usbcore              118224  3 uhci_hcd,ehci_hcd

scsi_mod              129548  7 sg,sd_mod,libata,qla2xxx,scsi_transport_fc,ips,scsi_tgt

thermal                15228  0

processor              32576  1 thermal

fan                    4196  0

thermal_sys            10856  3 thermal,processor,fan

Thank you.

This qla2xxx driver supports all QLogic Fibre Channel PCI and PCIe host adapters.

As far as i know, it seems only one scsi controller module is loaded, so both of your controllers uses this same module.

To ensure, type :
lspci

This will list the hardware.

If i'm right, then you will have to create modules aliases for your cards in /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf, specifying which one is first. Can't remember syntax by now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Linux.tar.gz (Post 4174621)

I want to thank you for your help so far.

here is lspci output:

Code:

lspci



00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation E7520 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)

00:00.1 Class ff00: Intel Corporation E7525/E7520 Error Reporting Registers (rev 0c)

00:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation E7525/E7520/E7320 PCI Express Port A (rev 0c)

00:04.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation E7525/E7520 PCI Express Port B (rev 0c)

00:05.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation E7520 PCI Express Port B1 (rev 0c)

00:06.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation E7520 PCI Express Port C (rev 0c)

00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation E7525/E7520/E7320 Extended Configuration Registers (rev 0c)

00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)

00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)

00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev c2)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)

00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) IDE Controller (rev 02)

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) SMBus Controller (rev 02)

01:06.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV100 QY [Radeon 7000/VE]

02:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6700PXH PCI Express-to-PCI Bridge A (rev 09)

02:00.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6700PXH PCI Express-to-PCI Bridge B (rev 09)

03:03.0 SCSI storage controller: QLogic Corp. QLA2200 64-bit Fibre Channel Adapter (rev 05)

05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5721 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 11)

06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5721 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 11)

07:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 80332 [Dobson] I/O processor (A-Segment Bridge) (rev 07)

07:00.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 80332 [Dobson] I/O processor (B-Segment Bridge) (rev 07)

08:0e.0 RAID bus controller: Adaptec ServeRAID Controller (rev 07)

I will appreciate your professional opinion about it.

Hello ,

I still have this problem with the device naming :banghead:

I will appreciate if someone can help me solve it.

TNX

Still need help with this problem