Strange Fedora Booting problem: can not mount "LABEL=*"partitions

[Rick Stevens]

Guolin Cheng wrote:
> I definitely enabled BSD partition support in my kernel, and in fact, it
> can detect other 3 "LABEL=*" partitions on the same logical partition.
> Except "LABEL=/var" or (/dev/hda10).
> 
> I don't use a Redhat Config as a start point. As my first email said, I
> use a sysimager-like way to install new clients, the system binary
> tarballs are dumped to the newly re-created and re-labeled file systems,
> then install lilo boot loader and reboot.

It's fsck.ext3 that's dying.  Either your fsck.ext3 is corrupted (it's
in /sbin if you need to find it) or the journal file on /var is so badly
screwed up that fsck can't hack it.

The fact that you can mount it is scary as the filesystem may be in bad
shape.  I sure as heck wouldn't trust it.  So, go fetch a decent copy
of fsck.ext3 somewhere and give it a try.

By the way /sbin/fsck.ext3 should be 590212 bytes in size.  The md5
checksum should be 0005dffb49a0119479b75fe195937824:

	[root at golem sbin]# ls -l fsck.ext3
	-rwxr-xr-x  3 root root 590212 Aug  1  2003 fsck.ext3
	[root at golem sbin]# md5sum fsck.ext3
	0005dffb49a0119479b75fe195937824  fsck.ext3

(note that those are from a fully current FC1 install on a P4).

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nigel Wade [mailto:nmw at ion.le.ac.uk] 
> Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 1:08 AM
> To: For users of Fedora Core releases
> Subject: Re: Strange Fedora Booting problem: can not mount
> "LABEL=*"partitions
> 
> Guolin Cheng wrote:
> 
>>Hi,
>>
>>Just got Fedora FC1 vanilla 2.4.25kernel+libata8patch booting
> 
> problems,
> 
>>FC1 complains that it can not automatically find&found partitions
>>specified with "LABEL=" in /etc/fstab, and then falls me into repair
>>mode. In the repair mode I can mount it manually without any problems.
>>More interesting are: 1) I have several partitions specified with
>>"LABEL=*" in /etc/fstab, but FC1 always can not identify same
> 
> partition
> 
>>even on different machines; 2) the default&upgraded ntpl kernel boots
> 
> up
> 
>>without problems.  My fstab is attached below:
>>
>>LABEL=/                 /                       ext3    defaults
> 
> 1
> 
>>1 LABEL=/0                /0                      ext3    defaults
>>1 2 /dev/hdc1               /1                      ext3    defaults
>>1 2 LABEL=/alexa            /alexa                  ext3    defaults
>>1 2 none                    /dev/pts                devpts
>>gid=5,mode=620  0 0 none                    /proc
> 
> proc
> 
>>defaults        0 0 none                    /dev/shm
> 
> tmpfs
> 
>>defaults        0 0 LABEL=/usr              /usr
> 
> ext3
> 
>>defaults        1 2 LABEL=/var              /var
> 
> ext3
> 
>>defaults        1 2 /dev/hda7               swap
> 
> swap
> 
>>defaults        0 0 /dev/hda6               swap
> 
> swap
> 
>>defaults        0 0 /dev/hda8               swap
> 
> swap
> 
>>defaults        0 0 /dev/fd0                /mnt/floppy
> 
> auto
> 
>>noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0 ops-test1.alexa.com guolin 134%
>>
>>FC1 stops on partitions "LABEL=/var" on two machines, stops on
> 
> partition
> 
>>"LABEL=/" on the 3rd machine. While the default|upgraded NTPL kernel
>>(with SMP problem) boots without a glitch, my vanilla 2.4.25 kernel
> 
> plus
> 
>>libata patch 2.4.25-libata8 fails with the above symptoms described.
>>
>>The solution to fix it is:  manually run "e2fsck -y -f  /dev/hd?,
> 
> tune2fs
> 
>>-j /dev/hd?; e2label /dev/hd? <LABEL>" again even there is no problem
>>with file system, journal node and ext2 label, then reboot.
>>
>>SInce we have several hundreds of RH8 machines to upgrade to Fedora,
> 
> we
> 
>>can not endure to fix booting problem one by one, So where is the
>>problem? File system utilites? 2.4.25 kernel? or the libata patch?
>>
>>The machines has Fedora Core 1 with all packages upgraded:
>>util-linux-2.11y-29, e2fsprogs-1.34-1, 2.4.25+2.4.25-libata8.
>>
>>The system disk's partitions were originally created under Redhat 8.0.
>>This upgrade to FC1 is as simple as: booting the machines into a FC1
>>diskless mode, then create file system on existing /, /usr, /var
>>partitions resides on system disk, label 3 partitions and and dump
> 
> system
> 
>>tarballs onto them,  install lilo bootload onto system disk  and
> 
> reboot.
> 
>>The simple&efficient way works great for years for us except this
> 
> time.
> 
>>:(
>>
>>Any suggestions? and what's the difference between 2.4.25-libata8
> 
> patch
> 
>>and 2.4.25-libata16 (bleeding-edge) patches?
>>
>>
>>Thanks a lot.
>>
>>--Guolin Cheng
>>
>>
>>
> 
> 
> I think you need to set BSD disklabel support in the Partition Types
> section 
> of the kernel config.
> 
> Didn't you use a RH config as the starting point?
> 
> 


-- 
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
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-   You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained.    -
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