kickstart fail to partition disk

[Jean-Yves Picard]

hello,

short version:
-Redhat 5.4's kickstart fail to partition Proliant DL380G5 internal disk

long version:
-I am trying to make a kickstart installation of a proliant DL380 G5.
-Firware and all is up to date (or at least 7.30)
-I boot on a local isomounted file.
-boot sequence goes OK, host get a DHCP IP and fetch kickstart file OK.

At the beginning of the kickstart file, there is a section to create a partition whith /boot and a rootvg.
unformtunatly if partitions are created, lvm vgscan seems to hang while looping on
modprobe -- -q block-major-69
every minute

redhat is release 5.4 x86_64.

any idea anyone ?

Jean-Yves Picard

[Jean-Yves Picard]

SmartStart CD used is 8.70 (not 7.30).

[Matti_Kurkela]

Here's the partitioning segment from a known-working kickstart.cfg file:

bootloader --location=mbr --driveorder=cciss/c0d0,sda
# The following is the partition information you requested
# Note that any partitions you deleted are not expressed
# here so unless you clear all partitions first, this is
# not guaranteed to work
zerombr
clearpart --linux
part /boot --fstype ext3 --size=100 --ondisk=cciss/c0d0 --asprimary
part pv.1 --size=100 --grow --ondisk=cciss/c0d0 --asprimary
volgroup vg00 --pesize=32768 pv.1
logvol / --fstype ext3 --name=lvol1 --vgname=vg00 --size=4096
logvol /var --fstype ext3 --name=lvol2 --vgname=vg00 --size=6080
logvol /home --fstype ext3 --name=lvol4 --vgname=vg00 --size=2048
logvol /usr/local --fstype ext3 --name=lvol5 --vgname=vg00 --size=1024
logvol swap --fstype swap --name=lvol0 --vgname=vg00 --size=4096
logvol /tmp --fstype ext3 --name=lvol3 --vgname=vg00 --size=1024
logvol /opt --fstype ext3 --name=lvol6 --vgname=vg00 --size=4096

Note the "pv.1" identifier is used in two places: first on the 2nd "part" line when creating the partition that will be used as a LVM PV, then on the "volgroup" line that begins the LVM set-up.

If the identifier on the "volgroup" line does not match the identifier on any preceding "part" line, the Kickstart installation gets stuck, waiting for a disk with a correct identifier to magically appear.

MK

[Jean-Yves Picard]

Hello,

I use almost the same kickstart file, however I have notice a strange thing

15:36:25 INFO : pvremove -ff -y -v /dev/cciss/c0d0p2
15:36:25 DEBUG : adding drive cciss/c0d0 to disk list
15:36:25 DEBUG : starting mpaths
15:36:25 DEBUG : self.driveList(): ['cciss/c0d0']
15:36:25 DEBUG : DiskSet.skippedDisks: ['sda', 'sdb', 'sdc', 'sdd']
15:36:25 DEBUG : DiskSet.skippedDisks: ['sda', 'sdb', 'sdc', 'sdd']
15:36:25 DEBUG : done starting mpaths. Drivelist: ['cciss/c0d0']
15:45:01 INFO : moving (1) to step autopartitionexecute
15:45:01 DEBUG : removing drive cciss/c0d0 from disk lists

see 9 minutes to commit partitionning ...

[Matti_Kurkela]

> 15:36:25 DEBUG : starting mpaths

Are you using the "mpath" boot option when starting the installation?

The "mpath" installation boot option should be used only when the OS is going to be installed on a multipathed disk. In your case, the SmartArray controller presents only one path to the OS (/dev/cciss/c0d0) so the "mpath" boot option is not necessary.

If you later want to use multipathed SAN disks as non-system (data) disks, you'll only need to make sure the device-mapper-multipath RPM is installed.

MK