# Damned DMRAID again... Please help...

## DJ_Sooflet

Can I ask if You guys got any ideas of a STABLE configuration for Gentoo with SOFTWARE RAID (dmraid) ??

I had it working well on my AMD64 but with old kernel gentoo-sources-2.6.15 (i followed THIS guide to install DMRAID and it worked), with dmraid v1.0.13, newest device-mapper(the newest version as of 01. march 2007)  and unupdated system (all SYSTEM profile-software from Gentoo-2006.0 CD), but when i upgraded GLIBC to new version 2.5, everything broke down, dmraid stopped working, and the kernel couldn't mount root device anymore...

Now I'm going to try i-686 gentoo version, as i have heard that AMD64 version is much more unstable than "normal" i-686 version. Of course i won't emerge --update anything from SYSTEM profile, because I'm afraid something may be incompatibile...

So this is my question - what are the SAFE system upgrades (GLIBC, GCC and such) which will not break down my dmraid configuration ? What is the highest SAFE kernel version i can use without the fear of destroying my system ?? Please give me some examples of your configurations.

Also have you got any idea about hmm... Let's call it "UNTOUCHABLES" - the software i shouldn't even touch if i want my DMRAID to work fine ? (One example is GLIBC, which broke my dmraid last time...)

Of course I'm talking about I-686 version all the time, i will not risk installing the unstable AMD64 versions...

I would appreciate any ideas You may have about it as i suppose You have some more experience than me...

BTW.

YES, of course i have windows on another partition, so using the KERNEL RAID is totally out of the question... I have to use dmraid, which works very well - [100MB/s with two SATA disks - I did benchmarks already] on my GA-K8NE (NVRAID) motherboard.Last edited by DJ_Sooflet on Sun Mar 04, 2007 7:51 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## NeddySeagoon

DJ_Sooflet,

Think on the boot process a moment.

grub loads the kernel, the kernel mounts the initrd containing your dmraid kernel module then proceeds to use dmraid to mount root.

All that can possibly be involved in dmraid working or not is the kernel and initrd, since nothing else can be accessed.

It follows that glibc is not involved, since its not in the initrd.

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## DJ_Sooflet

 *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   

> DJ_Sooflet,
> 
> It follows that glibc is not involved, since its not in the initrd.

 

Hmmm.... you know - but the emerge--update GLIBC automaticaly upgraded lots of other SYSTEM libraries, so maybe one of them caused the DMRAID to collapse ??

Or perhaps I'm mistaken and i have emerge--updated something else as well with the DMRAID....

I will try to check it again when i find some time.

------------------------------------------------

OK, I see now that this conversation is actually pointless. I should just make GENTOO 2.6.15 working with DMRAID, do DMESG, then do whole partition backup and kernel boot img backup, then emerge--update GLIBC, breaking dmraid down and do second DMESG and post it here... 

You know - The worst in all of this is the LACK OF TIME...

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## DJ_Sooflet

------------------------------------------------

OK. I got some of my old DMESG logs on a diskette - maybe it will give you some idea what went wrong...

Anyway, this is the OLD dmesg - i will be doing new one soon...

http://www.geocities.com/the_soofman16/bad_dmg.txt

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## NeddySeagoon

DJ_Sooflet,

This may be a pointer 

```
Linux version 2.6.15-gentoo-r5
```

. There was a kernel change made at 2.6.16 that had knock on effects to dmraid.

this thread is an old sticky on the topic.

I suspect you have updated the kernel or dmraid and you need to do them as a set

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## DJ_Sooflet

OK.

I did it all again to confirm my assumptions.... and guess what ? It failed again.

To be precise, i will tell you EXACTLY what i have done from beginning to the end.

1. I downloaded GENTOO amd64 2006.0 installcd

2. Did MD5 to check if it's ok

3. Did installations instructions from gentoo handbook PLUS installation of DMRAID according to this guide:

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Install_Gentoo_with_NVRAID_using_dmraid

4. Install GRUB (as in the previous guide)

5. Emerge vixie-cron, emerge syslog-ng

6. emerge --sync (i got advice to upgrade portage here, so in next step i did it)

7. emerge portage

8. REBOOT -> it worked fine

9. emerge links

10. emerge x11

11. emerge gnome

12. emerge gnome returned some errors when merging PYTHON

13. Python is a SYSTEM CRITICAL library, so i thought when i emerge --update it then my dmraid may break down again, so i did BACKUP of whole partition - copied it to another part of my hard drive

14. emerge --update python

15. REBOOTed to see if it's working, and suprisingly everything went OK

16. emerge gnome --> It finished ok 

17. SURPRISE !! After reboot, My dmraid isn't working anymore. That's not all - there is NO /dev/mapper at all !!

Of course i get the prompt that "root filesystem cannot be mounted, please do e2fsck, press CTRL + D or enter root password for maintenance". 

When i enter root password, i can browse /root filesystem  in read only mode

Here is my DMESG after the dmraid failure.

http://www.geocities.com/the_soofman15/dmesg_badbad.txt

If you want, i can post the DMESG before failure, as i have WHOLE PARTITION BACKUP in other part of the hard drive - i should be able to boot it easily.

I hope somebody can help me.

Thx a lot in advance

--------------------------------------------------------------

I'm starting to think more and more seriously that gentoo is not for me at all...

EDIT:

I forgot to add.... 

I have FULL ACCESS to my EXT3 root partition under windows, so if you want ANY FILE (maybe some logs ?) from the broken gentoo i can post it here quick.

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## NeddySeagoon

DJ_Sooflet,

There is nothing in your list that should have touched dmraid.

Is there a kernel update in there somewhere ?

How do you build your kernel, by hand or with genkernel ?

Be aware that if you use genkernel, it may not use the same version of dmraid that emerge provides, sice it has its own script for making the initrd, which will contain dmraid.

What kernel do you have and what version of dmraid do you have in your initrd. emerge dmraid -p will *not* show this.

Edit,

Unfortunately, logs won't help. As dmraid failed, your root was not mouted, so no logs could be written

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## 1ino1eum_4the_win

hum I ve got exactly the same problem, the boot fails and send me to the shell. 

If I do dmraid -ay in the shell then, I ve got my raid pratitions in /dev/mapper/ !

that means something wrong with dmraid in the boot sequence. How can I fix it?

Do we need to compile dmraid with the static flag?

Do we need to compile Differents raid modules in the kernel as well? Or remove all of them?

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## 1ino1eum_4the_win

ok, I managed to boot on my root partition by compiling all the scsi stuff as static under my kernel.

But still, at the boot there is the same error : " the root block device is unspecified or not deleted"

So I go in shell, do dmraid -ay , exit, the at the boot I do /dev/mapper/my_raid_partitonroot. and it works.

I would like to fix it, any idea?

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## DJ_Sooflet

 *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   

> DJ_Sooflet,
> 
> There is nothing in your list that should have touched dmraid.
> 
> 

 

Oh yes, unfortunately there is.

A don't have time now, but i will try to INVESTIGATE the matter today or tomorrow. I already have a GOOD CLUE - meaningly the package that breaks down the DMRAID (or device-mapper, as directory /dev/mapper doesn't exist, so i cant use TRUECRYPT as well) emerges when you emerge new GLIBC OR GNOME (as i told you earlier, previously i broke it using emerge glibc). 

It should be easy to find, but of course i need TIME.

When i find the problematic package, should I file a bug ??

 *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Is there a kernel update in there somewhere ?
> 
> How do you build your kernel, by hand or with genkernel ?
> ...

 

No. I have written you everything in EXACTLY the same order as i have done it. As you saw, i did MANY REBOOTS every time i upgraded some critical packages, as i was afraid DMRAID will fail.

So yes, Im sure that one of the packages is what breaks the dmraid down.

There's also another pain in the ass - truecrypt doesn't work too, as it requires /DEV/MAPPER dir to exist.

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