Re: SL 6.7 Fails to finish install
First step is "stop partitioning and getting cutesy with your layout at install time." Adding extra disks and software configs, especially the /mysql that may conflict with SELinux, is begging for trouble at install time. See if you can bring it alive with a bare installation, on sda only. Nico Kadel-Garcia Email: nka...@gmail.com Sent from iPhone > On Oct 5, 2015, at 12:53, Larry Linder > wrote: > > Dear Sir: > > We are building a new server and decided to use SL 6.7 > The system is a quad core AMD with 32 G Ram and 5 T bytes of disk space. > The OS is installed on the sda1 - 10 > /engr is installed on sdb1 > /mysql is install on sdc1 > /backup01 is on sdd1 > /backup02 is on sde1 > > The install progresses normally till it get to sde1 >it appears to finish the format correctly and >when it come time to mount the device we get the following: > > "An ERROR Occurred Mounting /dev/sde1 /backup02 mount failed (9,none) This > is a fatal error and install cannot continue." > > Disk and cable have been swapped, Port has been swapped. Problem does not > follow port or hardware. > The first time it occurred Saturday we were able to do a walk back but were > not able to save anything as network had not been configured, but we could do > a walk back but couldn't file a bug report. > The thing we noticed is that the second argument of all functions was empty. > > Meaning a void !!! or a null string ?? > > Second time with a known good disk for sde and another port on mother board > the error occurred again. > > The third time with new disk sde, cable, port it gave the same error message > but with Network set up so we could capture the problem. This time we were > not able to do a walk back. The only option was to reboot and we are back to > square 1. > > Any Ideas would be appreciated. > > Thank You > Larry Linder
Re: SL 6.7 Fails to finish install
First step was to remove the 5th disk from the system. I was mounted as /sde1 After this is complete the install finished with out a problem. A long time ago we ran into this problem and it had to do with the number of devices. We used to run 32 SCSI drives on a server using two 16 device cards and when the high speed serial stuff came out we were suddenly limited to 6 devices. - This from memory. The 5 SATA drives + DVD as a SATA drive is 6 Mother board is labeled 0 -> 5 all ports are used. We unplugged cable from 5th disk and the install went normally. It accepts sda1 - sda12, sdb1, sdc1, sdd1 and the DVD drive in 5th slot. Larry Linder On Monday October 5 2015 7:37 pm, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote: > First step is "stop partitioning and getting cutesy with your layout at > install time." Adding extra disks and software configs, especially the > /mysql that may conflict with SELinux, is begging for trouble at install > time. See if you can bring it alive with a bare installation, on sda only. > > Nico Kadel-Garcia > Email: nka...@gmail.com > Sent from iPhone > > > On Oct 5, 2015, at 12:53, Larry Linder > > wrote: > > > > Dear Sir: > > > > We are building a new server and decided to use SL 6.7 > > The system is a quad core AMD with 32 G Ram and 5 T bytes of disk space. > > The OS is installed on the sda1 - 10 > > /engr is installed on sdb1 > > /mysql is install on sdc1 > > /backup01 is on sdd1 > > /backup02 is on sde1 > > > > The install progresses normally till it get to sde1 > >it appears to finish the format correctly and > >when it come time to mount the device we get the following: > > > > "An ERROR Occurred Mounting /dev/sde1 /backup02 mount failed (9,none) > > This is a fatal error and install cannot continue." > > > > Disk and cable have been swapped, Port has been swapped. Problem does > > not follow port or hardware. > > The first time it occurred Saturday we were able to do a walk back but > > were not able to save anything as network had not been configured, but we > > could do a walk back but couldn't file a bug report. > > The thing we noticed is that the second argument of all functions was > > empty. Meaning a void !!! or a null string ?? > > > > Second time with a known good disk for sde and another port on mother > > board the error occurred again. > > > > The third time with new disk sde, cable, port it gave the same error > > message but with Network set up so we could capture the problem. This > > time we were not able to do a walk back. The only option was to reboot > > and we are back to square 1. > > > > Any Ideas would be appreciated. > > > > Thank You > > Larry Linder
Re: SL 6.7 Fails to finish install 6th
On Thursday October 8 2015 1:03 pm, Lamar Owen wrote: > On 10/07/2015 04:10 PM, Larry Linder wrote: > > It appears that at least from our experiments SL cannot handle more than > > 4 hard disks and this goes back to at least 5.9. SL 6.7 identifies the > > disks as all sda - sde but fails to mount 5th disk. > > I'm sure that it is not SL that cannot handle more than 4 hard disks, > but that something else is wrong with this system. > > > Any good ideas as to where this thing went wrong or how to fix problem. > > LVM still has the same problem when dealing with so many devices. > > I have a CentOS 6 box that at one time had about 27 physical volumes on > 27 physical LUNs in one volume group, with a single logical volume > containing a 30+TB XFS filesystem. It has been a few releases back, > since I've consolidated those PV's into some larger LUNs (long story, > but related to CentOS 5 on VMware ESX 3.5 and ESX being limited to no > larger than 2TB LUNs and to a set of drive upgrades in our EMC Clariion > storage systems). This is on fibre channel, and with multipath in place > the last drive device was around /dev/sdav or so (blew the mind of one > of our interns, who didn't understand that the drive after /dev/sdz is > /dev/sdaa!). > > Likewise another machine with CentOS 7 on it had 15 PV's on a fibre > channel SAN until I consolidated it down to a RAID 1 MD between two LUNs > of 11TB each. No problems. > > Back in CentOS 3 and 4 days I ran one server with a RAID5 set on eight > 160GB PATA drives (a GSI Model 4C four-channel ISA IDE interface card, > and, yes, it was very slow, but it did work). The resulting MDRAID > volume was data only; the OS was on a (don't laugh) DAC960-drive > external SCSI box with 12 18GB 10K RPM drives and ran quite well, all > things considered. > > > It looks like we will try BSD and some other Linux editions to see if > > they have these limitations. My guess is that upstream vendor made the > > free RHT "criple ware" deliberately. > > Something else is going on here, and your guess is likely rather wrong. > I don't know what exactly is going wrong, but I have several EL 5, 6, > and 7 systems with far more than five drives that are working fine. > > One of these is an old Netburst Xeon box running EL6 with six SATA > drives in the chassis and 15 LUNs on the fibre channel. The six SATA > drives are on three separate controller cards. One of the cards has two > eSATA connectors, and I use those for imaging and for backups frequently. > > I have not seen any artificial limits on the number of 'drives' (with > fibre channel you don't think that way, you think in terms of LUNs). Thank You I was sure that there has to be a common thread. There is another system available that has an identical hardware suite. We can unplug the disk pack and try it on another hardware set. Then we will know if we have a bad mother board. Larry Linder
Re: SL 6.7 Fails to finish install 4th try
On Tuesday October 6 2015 11:07 am, Larry Linder wrote: > First step was to remove the 5th disk from the system. I was mounted as > /sde1 After this is complete the install finished with out a problem. > > A long time ago we ran into this problem and it had to do with the number > of devices. > We used to run 32 SCSI drives on a server using two 16 device cards and > when the high speed serial stuff came out we were suddenly limited to 6 > devices. - This from memory. > > The 5 SATA drives + DVD as a SATA drive is 6 Mother board is labeled 0 -> > 5 all ports are used. We unplugged cable from 5th disk and the install > went normally. > It accepts sda1 - sda12, sdb1, sdc1, sdd1 and the DVD drive in 5th slot. > > Larry Linder > > On Monday October 5 2015 7:37 pm, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote: > > First step is "stop partitioning and getting cutesy with your layout at > > install time." Adding extra disks and software configs, especially the > > /mysql that may conflict with SELinux, is begging for trouble at install > > time. See if you can bring it alive with a bare installation, on sda > > only. > > > > Nico Kadel-Garcia > > Email: nka...@gmail.com > > Sent from iPhone > > > > > On Oct 5, 2015, at 12:53, Larry Linder > > > wrote: > > > > > > Dear Sir: > > > > > > We are building a new server and decided to use SL 6.7 > > > The system is a quad core AMD with 32 G Ram and 5 T bytes of disk > > > space. The OS is installed on the sda1 - 10 > > > /engr is installed on sdb1 > > > /mysql is install on sdc1 > > > /backup01 is on sdd1 > > > /backup02 is on sde1 > > > > > > The install progresses normally till it get to sde1 > > >it appears to finish the format correctly and > > >when it come time to mount the device we get the following: > > > > > > "An ERROR Occurred Mounting /dev/sde1 /backup02 mount failed (9,none) > > > This is a fatal error and install cannot continue." > > > > > > Disk and cable have been swapped, Port has been swapped. Problem does > > > not follow port or hardware. > > > The first time it occurred Saturday we were able to do a walk back but > > > were not able to save anything as network had not been configured, but > > > we could do a walk back but couldn't file a bug report. > > > The thing we noticed is that the second argument of all functions was > > > empty. Meaning a void !!! or a null string ?? > > > > > > Second time with a known good disk for sde and another port on mother > > > board the error occurred again. > > > > > > The third time with new disk sde, cable, port it gave the same error > > > message but with Network set up so we could capture the problem. This > > > time we were not able to do a walk back. The only option was to reboot > > > and we are back to square 1. > > > > > > Any Ideas would be appreciated. > > > > > > Thank You > > > Larry Linder What we have tried. The downloaded DVD was error checked before we began this exercise so we are certain that the DVD set is good. The 5th. disk was connected to different port on mother board and if we limit the number of disks to 4 + DVD drive it works and install completes. We are convinced the Hardware suite is VALID. The other output ports were vacated when removing a disk. This try we selected default on SL 6.7 to automatically set it up and use LVM to assign disk. It proceeded normally and when it gets to sde1 we get an error message that it cannot format disk. This disk will work as sdb sdc sdd. The walk back did not give a clue except that the second argument to function is null. or null string as in other tries. When in manual disk setup there at least it formats sde but will not mount it. Same walk back info but the error is now it cannot mount disk. Next we will try 5.11 on this hardware and see if it works. another test is to install BSD. Other people who use BSD report that they have mounted 99 devices with out a problem. This box is not connected to our network as it is used all day. Will connect it Saturday and see if we can file a bug report. Larry Linder
Re: SL 6.7 Fails to finish install 5th try
On Wednesday October 7 2015 1:51 pm, Larry Linder wrote: > On Tuesday October 6 2015 11:07 am, Larry Linder wrote: > > First step was to remove the 5th disk from the system. I was mounted as > > /sde1 After this is complete the install finished with out a problem. > > > > A long time ago we ran into this problem and it had to do with the number > > of devices. > > We used to run 32 SCSI drives on a server using two 16 device cards and > > when the high speed serial stuff came out we were suddenly limited to 6 > > devices. - This from memory. > > > > The 5 SATA drives + DVD as a SATA drive is 6 Mother board is labeled 0 > > -> 5 all ports are used. We unplugged cable from 5th disk and the > > install went normally. > > It accepts sda1 - sda12, sdb1, sdc1, sdd1 and the DVD drive in 5th slot. > > > > Larry Linder > > > > On Monday October 5 2015 7:37 pm, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote: > > > First step is "stop partitioning and getting cutesy with your layout at > > > install time." Adding extra disks and software configs, especially the > > > /mysql that may conflict with SELinux, is begging for trouble at > > > install time. See if you can bring it alive with a bare installation, > > > on sda only. > > > > > > Nico Kadel-Garcia > > > Email: nka...@gmail.com > > > Sent from iPhone > > > > > > > On Oct 5, 2015, at 12:53, Larry Linder > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > Dear Sir: > > > > > > > > We are building a new server and decided to use SL 6.7 > > > > The system is a quad core AMD with 32 G Ram and 5 T bytes of disk > > > > space. The OS is installed on the sda1 - 10 > > > > /engr is installed on sdb1 > > > > /mysql is install on sdc1 > > > > /backup01 is on sdd1 > > > > /backup02 is on sde1 > > > > > > > > The install progresses normally till it get to sde1 > > > >it appears to finish the format correctly and > > > >when it come time to mount the device we get the following: > > > > > > > > "An ERROR Occurred Mounting /dev/sde1 /backup02 mount failed > > > > (9,none) This is a fatal error and install cannot continue." > > > > > > > > Disk and cable have been swapped, Port has been swapped. Problem > > > > does not follow port or hardware. > > > > The first time it occurred Saturday we were able to do a walk back > > > > but were not able to save anything as network had not been > > > > configured, but we could do a walk back but couldn't file a bug > > > > report. > > > > The thing we noticed is that the second argument of all functions was > > > > empty. Meaning a void !!! or a null string ?? > > > > > > > > Second time with a known good disk for sde and another port on mother > > > > board the error occurred again. > > > > > > > > The third time with new disk sde, cable, port it gave the same error > > > > message but with Network set up so we could capture the problem. > > > > This time we were not able to do a walk back. The only option was to > > > > reboot and we are back to square 1. > > > > > > > > Any Ideas would be appreciated. > > > > > > > > Thank You > > > > Larry Linder > > What we have tried. > The downloaded DVD was error checked before we began this exercise so we > are certain that the DVD set is good. > > The 5th. disk was connected to different port on mother board and if we > limit the number of disks to 4 + DVD drive it works and install completes. > We are convinced the Hardware suite is VALID. The other output ports were > vacated when removing a disk. > > This try we selected default on SL 6.7 to automatically set it up and use > LVM to assign disk. It proceeded normally and when it gets to sde1 we get > an error message that it cannot format disk. This disk will work as sdb > sdc sdd. > The walk back did not give a clue except that the second argument to > function is null. or null string as in other tries. > > When in manual disk setup there at least it formats sde but will not mount > it. Same walk back info but the error is now it cannot mount disk. > > Next we will try 5.11 on this hardware and see if it works. > another test is to install BSD. Other people who use BSD report that they > have mounted 99 devices with out a problem. > > This box is not connected to our network as it is used all day. Will > connect it Saturday and see if we can file a bug report. > > Larry Linder SL 5.9 Install of SL 5.9 revealed some more information. Install and disk setup using 5 disks. Disks have been re ordered as plugged into mother board. All disks are WD Black 1 T byte. with identical production numbers, except for SN. (New ). Installer lists fdisks as: hd1 5th disk not the same disk but 1 of 5 in disk pack. sda second disk sdb third disk sdc forth disk sdd fifth disk. Install fails because it can't write /boot to GPT partitioning. SL5 does not understand this but relies on Master Boot Record. It appears that at least from our experiments SL cannot handle more than
Re: SL 6.7 Fails to finish install 4th try
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 1:51 PM, Larry Linder wrote: > > On Tuesday October 6 2015 11:07 am, Larry Linder wrote: >> First step was to remove the 5th disk from the system. I was mounted as >> /sde1 After this is complete the install finished with out a problem. >> >> A long time ago we ran into this problem and it had to do with the number >> of devices. >> We used to run 32 SCSI drives on a server using two 16 device cards and >> when the high speed serial stuff came out we were suddenly limited to 6 >> devices. - This from memory. >> >> The 5 SATA drives + DVD as a SATA drive is 6 Mother board is labeled 0 -> >> 5 all ports are used. We unplugged cable from 5th disk and the install >> went normally. >> It accepts sda1 - sda12, sdb1, sdc1, sdd1 and the DVD drive in 5th slot. >> >> Larry Linder >> >> On Monday October 5 2015 7:37 pm, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote: >> > First step is "stop partitioning and getting cutesy with your layout at >> > install time." Adding extra disks and software configs, especially the >> > /mysql that may conflict with SELinux, is begging for trouble at install >> > time. See if you can bring it alive with a bare installation, on sda >> > only. >> > >> > Nico Kadel-Garcia >> > Email: nka...@gmail.com >> > Sent from iPhone >> > >> > > On Oct 5, 2015, at 12:53, Larry Linder >> > > wrote: >> > > >> > > Dear Sir: >> > > >> > > We are building a new server and decided to use SL 6.7 >> > > The system is a quad core AMD with 32 G Ram and 5 T bytes of disk >> > > space. The OS is installed on the sda1 - 10 >> > > /engr is installed on sdb1 >> > > /mysql is install on sdc1 >> > > /backup01 is on sdd1 >> > > /backup02 is on sde1 >> > > >> > > The install progresses normally till it get to sde1 >> > >it appears to finish the format correctly and >> > >when it come time to mount the device we get the following: >> > > >> > > "An ERROR Occurred Mounting /dev/sde1 /backup02 mount failed (9,none) >> > > This is a fatal error and install cannot continue." >> > > >> > > Disk and cable have been swapped, Port has been swapped. Problem does >> > > not follow port or hardware. >> > > The first time it occurred Saturday we were able to do a walk back but >> > > were not able to save anything as network had not been configured, but >> > > we could do a walk back but couldn't file a bug report. >> > > The thing we noticed is that the second argument of all functions was >> > > empty. Meaning a void !!! or a null string ?? >> > > >> > > Second time with a known good disk for sde and another port on mother >> > > board the error occurred again. >> > > >> > > The third time with new disk sde, cable, port it gave the same error >> > > message but with Network set up so we could capture the problem. This >> > > time we were not able to do a walk back. The only option was to reboot >> > > and we are back to square 1. >> > > >> > > Any Ideas would be appreciated. >> > > >> > > Thank You >> > > Larry Linder > > What we have tried. > The downloaded DVD was error checked before we began this exercise so we are > certain that the DVD set is good. > > The 5th. disk was connected to different port on mother board and if we limit > the number of disks to 4 + DVD drive it works and install completes. > We are convinced the Hardware suite is VALID. The other output ports were > vacated when removing a disk. > > This try we selected default on SL 6.7 to automatically set it up and use LVM > to assign disk. It proceeded normally and when it gets to sde1 we get an > error message that it cannot format disk. This disk will work as sdb sdc > sdd. > The walk back did not give a clue except that the second argument to function > is null. or null string as in other tries. >From your descriptions, you seem to be insisting on activating the fifth disk at installation time. Please stop trying to activate anything but the first disk for the "/" partition at install time, and add the other disks later. Both LVM and resize2fs support this if you need a merged array. Installing just the OS, itself, at installation time gives you access to kernel updates that may not be in 6.7, and should allow you to activate the other components after the initial installation. This may not be pretty, but it avoids any subtle bugs in the anaconda installation suite. It's clear from your note that the "4 SATA porta, plus a 5fth one" are not on the same controller and the 5ifth disk is on the motherboard. Testing the motherboard SATA for compatibility means *swapping* connectors, not just connecting the fifth one to a different location or disconnecting. You should also be able to use the live DVD to boot the system up and see if all the drives are visible and can be partitioned and write enabled, which may provide more informaiton. > When in manual disk setup there at least it formats sde but will not mount > it. Same walk back info but the error is now it cannot mount disk Please: stop trying to format anything but sda a
Re: SL 6.7 Fails to finish install 5th try
On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 4:10 PM, Larry Linder wrote: > Install fails because it can't write /boot to GPT partitioning. SL5 does not > understand this but relies on Master Boot Record. > > It appears that at least from our experiments SL cannot handle more than 4 > hard disks and this goes back to at least 5.9. SL 6.7 identifies the disks > as all sda - sde but fails to mount 5th disk. > > Any good ideas as to where this thing went wrong or how to fix problem. > LVM still has the same problem when dealing with so many devices. > > It looks like we will try BSD and some other Linux editions to see if they > have these limitations. My guess is that upstream vendor made the free > RHT "criple ware" deliberately. If you could get the functions source code > you would know in a few minutes. > We have seen some mother boards with 12 sd ports. > > Larry Linder That guess is ill-founded. Red Hat has been very, very good about using GPL to publish their tools, especially kernels, and publishing their installers. And I've personally various RHEL, CentOS, and Scientific Linux systems on large environments with half a dozen attached disks and never encountered what you're encountering. But I do not partition anything but the "/" disk at installation time, i always do the others later.
Re: SL 6.7 Fails to finish install 5th try
On 10/07/2015 04:10 PM, Larry Linder wrote: It appears that at least from our experiments SL cannot handle more than 4 hard disks and this goes back to at least 5.9. SL 6.7 identifies the disks as all sda - sde but fails to mount 5th disk. I'm sure that it is not SL that cannot handle more than 4 hard disks, but that something else is wrong with this system. Any good ideas as to where this thing went wrong or how to fix problem. LVM still has the same problem when dealing with so many devices. I have a CentOS 6 box that at one time had about 27 physical volumes on 27 physical LUNs in one volume group, with a single logical volume containing a 30+TB XFS filesystem. It has been a few releases back, since I've consolidated those PV's into some larger LUNs (long story, but related to CentOS 5 on VMware ESX 3.5 and ESX being limited to no larger than 2TB LUNs and to a set of drive upgrades in our EMC Clariion storage systems). This is on fibre channel, and with multipath in place the last drive device was around /dev/sdav or so (blew the mind of one of our interns, who didn't understand that the drive after /dev/sdz is /dev/sdaa!). Likewise another machine with CentOS 7 on it had 15 PV's on a fibre channel SAN until I consolidated it down to a RAID 1 MD between two LUNs of 11TB each. No problems. Back in CentOS 3 and 4 days I ran one server with a RAID5 set on eight 160GB PATA drives (a GSI Model 4C four-channel ISA IDE interface card, and, yes, it was very slow, but it did work). The resulting MDRAID volume was data only; the OS was on a (don't laugh) DAC960-drive external SCSI box with 12 18GB 10K RPM drives and ran quite well, all things considered. It looks like we will try BSD and some other Linux editions to see if they have these limitations. My guess is that upstream vendor made the free RHT "criple ware" deliberately. Something else is going on here, and your guess is likely rather wrong. I don't know what exactly is going wrong, but I have several EL 5, 6, and 7 systems with far more than five drives that are working fine. One of these is an old Netburst Xeon box running EL6 with six SATA drives in the chassis and 15 LUNs on the fibre channel. The six SATA drives are on three separate controller cards. One of the cards has two eSATA connectors, and I use those for imaging and for backups frequently. I have not seen any artificial limits on the number of 'drives' (with fibre channel you don't think that way, you think in terms of LUNs).
Re: SL 6.7 Fails to finish install and more.
Removed 5 th disk and tried a LVM install and it did not see disk 2, 3, 4 and you could not find if they were mounted or ? - nothing. Decided to go back to orig. hand lay out and when you get it done it says that sda must have a GPT disk Label. There are no provisions to do this and its not done automatically in any scheme we can find. The scheme the guys used months ago does not work of allowing it to create disk label and then bail out. Ounce you try to use the LVM there is no way to get back to square 1. This is really getting DUMB. Right next to this box is a another box with 6.2 loaded and using a manual partitioning scheme that has worked for us forever. We never tried to use LVM on this system. How do you not allow a user to install the system any way he may need it. The failure to allow the fifth disk to be installed is pretty bad. The last try will be an install with a new mother board and new disks and then we quit fooling around. My only complaint is that how do a bunch of kids take a nice operating system and totally louse it up. Larry Linder On Friday October 9 2015 12:14 pm, Larry Linder wrote: > On Thursday October 8 2015 1:03 pm, Lamar Owen wrote: > > On 10/07/2015 04:10 PM, Larry Linder wrote: > > > It appears that at least from our experiments SL cannot handle more > > > than 4 hard disks and this goes back to at least 5.9. SL 6.7 > > > identifies the disks as all sda - sde but fails to mount 5th disk. > > > > I'm sure that it is not SL that cannot handle more than 4 hard disks, > > but that something else is wrong with this system. > > > > > Any good ideas as to where this thing went wrong or how to fix problem. > > > LVM still has the same problem when dealing with so many devices. > > > > I have a CentOS 6 box that at one time had about 27 physical volumes on > > 27 physical LUNs in one volume group, with a single logical volume > > containing a 30+TB XFS filesystem. It has been a few releases back, > > since I've consolidated those PV's into some larger LUNs (long story, > > but related to CentOS 5 on VMware ESX 3.5 and ESX being limited to no > > larger than 2TB LUNs and to a set of drive upgrades in our EMC Clariion > > storage systems). This is on fibre channel, and with multipath in place > > the last drive device was around /dev/sdav or so (blew the mind of one > > of our interns, who didn't understand that the drive after /dev/sdz is > > /dev/sdaa!). > > > > Likewise another machine with CentOS 7 on it had 15 PV's on a fibre > > channel SAN until I consolidated it down to a RAID 1 MD between two LUNs > > of 11TB each. No problems. > > > > Back in CentOS 3 and 4 days I ran one server with a RAID5 set on eight > > 160GB PATA drives (a GSI Model 4C four-channel ISA IDE interface card, > > and, yes, it was very slow, but it did work). The resulting MDRAID > > volume was data only; the OS was on a (don't laugh) DAC960-drive > > external SCSI box with 12 18GB 10K RPM drives and ran quite well, all > > things considered. > > > > > It looks like we will try BSD and some other Linux editions to see if > > > they have these limitations. My guess is that upstream vendor made > > > the free RHT "criple ware" deliberately. > > > > Something else is going on here, and your guess is likely rather wrong. > > I don't know what exactly is going wrong, but I have several EL 5, 6, > > and 7 systems with far more than five drives that are working fine. > > > > One of these is an old Netburst Xeon box running EL6 with six SATA > > drives in the chassis and 15 LUNs on the fibre channel. The six SATA > > drives are on three separate controller cards. One of the cards has two > > eSATA connectors, and I use those for imaging and for backups frequently. > > > > I have not seen any artificial limits on the number of 'drives' (with > > fibre channel you don't think that way, you think in terms of LUNs). > > Thank You > I was sure that there has to be a common thread. There is another system > available that has an identical hardware suite. We can unplug the disk > pack and try it on another hardware set. > Then we will know if we have a bad mother board. > > Larry Linder
Re: SL 6.7 Fails to finish install and more.
On Sat, Oct 10, 2015 at 12:57 PM, Larry Linder wrote: > Removed 5 th disk and tried a LVM install and it did not see disk 2, 3, 4 and > you could not find if they were mounted or ? - nothing. Larry, I've discussed parts of this several times now. 1) Stop trying to partition everything at install time. Talk only to the first disk. Really. 2) You keep starting with previously partitioned disks. These are not the "new" disks" you mentioned at first, and so are much more prone to fascinating interactions of previous work than "new" disks. In particular, they may have fascinating remnants of previous partitioning and especially of LVM configuration,. The worst of these is a problem I ran into with SL 5 and equivalent operating systems, where the remnants of an LVM is detected but reported as inactive, and needs to be activated and cleared manually. So: stop playing with the installer for one round. The anaconda hub/spoke model does not provide the full range of command line tool options. It's a problem with a lot of open source GUI's, and is one of the guidelines Eric Raymond added to his "Luxury of Ignorance" essay years ago, namely: > Are there settings you can do from the command line or hand-editing config files that cannot be done from the GUI? Are they documented anywhere? Does using the GUI erase these settings? That's a guideline I sent him and he quoted as a postscript in the essay, and I suggest that it applies here. You need to get to the command line and use the :LVM commands such as "pvgroup", "vggroup", and "lvgroup" to check for existing LVM configurations, and *remove* them. You can boot the installation DVD into "rescue" mode, by selecting the installation options and adding the word "rescue" to the boot options. When you're in the Anaconda GUI, you should be able to hit "Ctrl-Alt-F2" will get you to the running command line virtual terminal, and "Ctrl-Alt-F1" will get you back to the GUI. The basic tools of "fdisk" for small disks, and "parted" for larger disks will give you some access to existing disk configurations,, and "pvscan", "vgscan", and "lvscan" will report existing LVM configurations so you can *erase* them. You may need to reset them as "active" with "lvchange", in order to clear them completely. I can't help you with that. > Decided to go back to orig. hand lay out and when you get it done it says that > sda must have a GPT disk Label. There are no provisions to do this and its > not done automatically in any scheme we can find. The "parted" command has this, and it's what anaconda uses. It's much more easily scripted. "fdisk" does not support it. > The scheme the guys used months ago does not work of allowing it to create > disk label and then bail out. > Ounce you try to use the LVM there is no way to get back to square 1. See above. > This is really getting DUMB. Right next to this box is a another box with > 6.2 loaded and using a manual partitioning scheme that has worked for us > forever. We never tried to use LVM on this system. Welcome to "recovering from a previously installed system gets nasty". > How do you not allow a user to install the system any way he may need it. > The failure to allow the fifth disk to be installed is pretty bad. You've reported a wide variety of interactions and edge cases, too many to debug all of them. I urge you to *stop playing* with setting all the disks up at install time. Use the command line tools if needed, and if nothing set up some tasks to simply zero all the disks simultaneously, and come back the next da and start from there. > The last try will be an install with a new mother board and new disks and then > we quit fooling around. > > My only complaint is that how do a bunch of kids take a nice operating system > and totally louse it up. > > Larry Linder There's a great deal I don't like about the anaconda installer, but please stop blaming your problems on other components. Simplify the problem: clear the old file system configs, *all* of them, and if nothing, start with only one drive attached at install time, *then* add the other drives.
