Bug#614353: multipath-tools-boot: upgrade to squeeze breaks machines with root on iscsi

[Hanspeter Kunz]

On Mon, 2011-02-28 at 03:07 +0530, Ritesh Raj Sarraf wrote:
> On 02/27/2011 04:26 PM, Hanspeter Kunz wrote:
> > ok, let me restate the issue, it is actually quite simple:
> > 
> > During boot, after multipath assembled its devices, I see
> > the /dev/mapper multipath devices (which is fine) but
> > the /dev/disk/by-uuid symlinks point to one of the underlying iscsi
> > devices. Therefore, I cannot not boot using root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/...
> > because this leads to an error (as the device is already used by
> > multipath).
> > 
> > when I boot the same system using root=/dev/mapper/... it works. 
> > 
> > after booting, when the system is up, the /dev/disk/by-uuid symlinks
> > point to the multipath devices (an not anymore to the iscsi devices
> > directly), which is how it should be.
> > 
> > so the only thing that is missing is that these symlinks are created
> > correctly during boot.
> > 
> 
> Okay!! I'll look into it soon as time permits. In case you get a root
> cause, please do share.

cool, thanks!

I tried to nail down the problem a bit more:

1. booted the system with break=mountroot
2. manually executed /scripts/local-top/iscsi. I get the two iscsi
devices /dev/sda and /dev/sdb (plus all the partitions) as expected.
I /dev/disk/by-uuid there are symlinks to the /dev/sdbx partitions. So
far everything is as expected.
3. I manually removed the symlinks in /dev/disk/by-uuid (although this
is probably not necessry).
4. manually executed /scripts/local-top/multipath. This re-creates the
same symlinks in /dev/disk/by-uuid, again pointing to the /dev/sdbx
partitions, instead of pointing to the /dev/dm-x partitions

cheers,
-- 
Hanspeter Kunz                  University of Zurich
Systems Administrator           Department of Informatics
Email: hkunz at ifi.uzh.ch         Binzmühlestrasse 14
Tel: +41.(0)44.63-56714         Office 2.E.07
http://www.ifi.uzh.ch           CH-8050 Zurich, Switzerland

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---
To err is human, to forgive unusual.