Issues Relocating RHEL 5 OS Environment to SAN Boot - XP12000

[Alzhy]

I had a successful move of our local RHEL 5.X OS environments to an independently bootable SAN Boot using EVA 8400 LUNS.

But to an XP12000 SAN Boot LUN -- I am facing issues. I wonder if anyone out there has had a similar experience. Existing OS environments have te HP Device mapper multipath kit installed (4.4.1).

Anyway, the procedure I used from running OS:

1. Enable FC-HBA BIOS (via scli tool)
2. Assign XP Boot LUN (via scli tool)
3. scan LUN - find out its /dev/mapper/mpathN device
4. Paritition into 2 - p1 and p2 (p1 for /boot and p2 as LVM PV for VG named "vgsan")
5. Carve OS partitions on SAN boot LUN based "vgsan" LVM
6. Create filesystems on /dev/mapper/mpathNp1 and /dev/vgsan/*lvols* (tune2fs certain params)
7. copy OS paritions using dump/restore
8. Install GRUB on /dev/mapper/mpathNp1
9. Edit grub.conf on SAN boot environment to reflect new LVM VG based / paritition

root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-194.26.1.el5 ro root=/dev/vgsan/root rhgb quiet

(instead of /dev/vg00/root as kernel path)

10. edit device.map file on /boot/grub of SAN Boot environment
11. Edit fstab on SAN Boot Environment
12. rebuild initrd for new SAN Boot environment

mkinitrd -v -f --fstab=/broot/etc/fstab /broot/boot/initrd-2.6.18-194.26.1.el5.img 2.6.18-194.26.1.el5

Then switch Boot Controller Order, Boot the SAN Environment.


However - when booting, it abends with the following:

/bin/true exitted with 255
error calling out /bin/true
not enough space for response from /bin/true

And eventually panics...

The ABOVE recipe works absoultely well with EVA and even NotAPP SAN Boot LUNS.

Any Klue as to what could be going on?

TIA!

[Alzhy]

The HP Recipe for SAN Boot http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01513866/c01513866.pdf was of partial help.

It calls for commenting in multipath.conf:

prio_callout "/bin/true"

But it did not help in my case. Then I came accross an advisory from HP on Booting from XP SAN disks -- http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c02060816〈=en&cc=us&taskId=115&prodSeriesId=436460&prodTypeId=12169&printver=true

which also mentions commenting that line to be commented out.

The eventual FIX?

1.) Change the multipath.conf as well in the initrd image on the SAN Boot Environment (very tedious)

or

2.) Have the current OS (non SAN Boot LUN) /etc/multipath.conf's prio_callout line commented. It appears the mkinitrd process simply copies this file to the initrd image.

So despite the BOOT LUN's /etc/multipath.conf's prio_callout line commented - the problem it seems is in initrd -- which has its own copy of a multipath.conf.

Problem Solved!