[Mageia-dev] Please test dracut (mkinitrd replacement)

Sun Oct 23 21:05:39 CEST 2011

On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 12:29:46AM +0100, Colin Guthrie wrote:
+> Hi,
+> 
+> Due to upcoming changes to systemd and friends we'll likely need to use
+> dracut rather than mkinitrd for some setups (i.e. those with LVM volumes
+> defined in /etc/fstab)
+> 
+> It would be good if people here could test as we will likely make it the
+> default at some point in the not too distant future.
+> 
+> To test:
+> 
+> sudo -i (or su -)
+> urpmi dracut
+> cd /boot
+> mv initrd-3.1.0-desktop-0.rc10.1.mga2.img initrd-old.img
+> /sbin/installkernel -N 3.1.0-desktop-0.rc10.1.mga2
+done.
+> 
+> 
+> This should install dracut, move the existing initrd out of the way, and
+> regenerate a new one using dracut. If you are using a different kernel
+> version then adjust the two commands accordingly to pick the right version.
+> 
+> Then just reboot. Hopefully all will go well and you won't notice much
+> difference :)
+> 
+I'm sad to be the first to give bad news about that but:
+when I rebooted it didn't work.
+
+Here is the partitionning scheme I have:
+/boot 256 MB
+raid 0: 2x 60 GB
+LVM on raid
+/ on logical volume, btrfs filesystem
+
+When I boot with the dracut initrd I don't get my / mounted.
+
+Instead, after a while plymouth disappears and I get the following
+message, repeated all over the screen:
+modprobe: FATAL: Error inserting btrfs
+(/lib/modules/3.1.0-desktop-0.rc10.1.mga2/kernel/fs/btrfs/btrfs.ko.gz)
+Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)
+
+When I run dmesg|less:
+Everything is fine until my logical volumes are active and then I get
+this message repeated over and over:
+dracut: Checking, if btrfs device complete
+
+and in the middle of this flood I get this:
+scanning for all btrfs devices
+failed to open /dev/btrfs_control skipping device registration
+scanning devices md0 for LVM volume groups
+Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while
+Found volume group "kaze" using metadata type lvm2
+Partial mode. Incomplete volumes will be processed
+5 logical volume(s) in volume group "kaze" now active
+Autoassembling MDRaid.
+
+and in the end I get
+dracut: Warning: no root device "block:/dev/kaze/cauldron" found
+
+So, to me the problem is neither raid nor LVM but btrfs
+
+Any idea on how to solve this issue ?
+
+In case it can be useful, here is the result of
+lsinitrd-dracut /boot/initrd.img : http://pastebin.com/Xe5Jhj38
+> If it fails you should still be able to use the previous initrd by
+> editing the grub command line and specifying the initrd-old.img file
+> manually.
+> 
+Indeed, but does that mean that for the next kernel upgrade it will use
+dracut by default ? Is there a way to generate the initrd the old way ?
+> 
+> Cheers
+> 
+> Col
+> 
+> -- 
+> 
+> Colin Guthrie
+> colin(at)mageia.org
+> http://colin.guthr.ie/
+> 
+> Day Job:
+>   Tribalogic Limited http://www.tribalogic.net/
+> Open Source:
+>   Mageia Contributor http://www.mageia.org/
+>   PulseAudio Hacker http://www.pulseaudio.org/
+>   Trac Hacker http://trac.edgewall.org/
+
+Thanks in advance,
+
+Regards,
+-- 
+Rémy CLOUARD
+() ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
+/\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments
+