[linux-lvm] How to boot with LVM?

[Neil Macvicar]

A few notes I missed: This ramdisk I made myself. You can mount it on
loopback after untarring it to examine it's contents. It's size sould be set
to 8192.

Regards,
--Neil.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Neil Macvicar" <neilm at foobarhouse.com>
To: <linux-lvm at sistina.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 1:15 PM
Subject: Re: [linux-lvm] How to boot with LVM?


> If it's any help, I have put my initrd on public ftp at
> fruits.foobarhouse.com in the LVM directory. It's served me well for as
long
> as I've been using LVM'ed root.
>
> I'm currently using LVM 0.9.1beta8.
>
> Regards,
> --Neil.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "A.R. (Tom) Peters" <tpeters at xs4all.nl>
> To: <linux-lvm at sistina.com>
> Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 8:18 AM
> Subject: [linux-lvm] How to boot with LVM?
>
>
> > I bought a 30 GB HD, and decided to put it under the LVM and put
> > ReiserFS on it.  I managed to initialize it fine, and it now has a base
> > Debian install on it, but I cannot manage to boot from it.
> >
> > You cannot boot from a LV; therefore I made a small (16 MB) ext2
> > partition with a kernel and an initrd.  My intended root FS is on a LV,
> > and you need to jump through some hoops to get the kernel mount it on /
> > : that is documented in the LVM-HOWTO and FAQ that comes with the LVM
> > tools.  Use of initrd is documented in
> > /usr/src/linux/Documents/initrd.txt .  Finally, the Bootdisk-HOWTO
> > helps.
> >
> > I use LVM tools 1.0.1-rc2, and a 2.4.10-pre7 kernel, patched with the
> > patches of the LVM tools; no .rej there.  I compiled the LVM binaries
> > with liblvm-10 statically linked, because otherwise the executables in
> > the initrd had problems with finding the .so (I think I know what was
> > going on, but won't go into that now).  Therefore I have to make a
> > Ramdisk of 5MB instead of the default 4 MB.
> >
> > My new HD is /dev/hdd, and is the 3rd HD in the system: this allows me
> > to still use my computer to read docs and send you this message.  So for
> > now I do not want to put a bootloader on the disk because the hardware
> > config is going to change: instead I use a boot floppy with GRUB.
> >
> > LVM has a utility script lvmcreate_initrd to make an initrd suitable to
> > prepare for mounting a LV on / .
> >
> > The system boots with the floppy; the correct kernel is loaded from the
> > ext2 partition, as well as the initrd; the LVM tools on the initrd are
> > executed and seem to work properly.
> >
> > PROBLEM: subsequently the kernel panics because it still cannot mount a
> > root.
> >
> > I got a GRUB bootdisk that works.  /grub/menu.lst :
> > title  Linux24
> > root (hd2,4)
> > kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.10-pre7 root=/dev/SYSDISK/Root ramdisk_size=5120
> > # If I specify root=/dev/ram0 then I get a shell on the rudimentary
> > initrd system.
> > initrd /initrd-lvm-2.4.10-pre7.gz
> >
> > On initrd:
> >
> > etc/fstab:
> > /dev/ram        /               ext2    defaults        0   0
> > proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0   0
> >
> > linuxrc:
> > #!/bin/sh
> > /bin/mount /proc
> > /sbin/vgscan
> > /sbin/vgchange -a y
> > /bin/umount /proc
> >
> > devices:
> > # ls -l dev/SYSDISK/
> > total 0
> > brw-rw----    1 root     disk      58,   2 Sep 11 19:23 Opt
> > brw-rw----    1 root     disk      58,   0 Sep 11 19:23 Root
> > brw-rw----    1 root     disk      58,   4 Sep 11 19:23 Scratch
> > brw-rw----    1 root     disk      58,   1 Sep 11 19:23 Usr
> > brw-rw----    1 root     disk      58,   3 Sep 11 19:23 Var
> > crw-r-----    1 root     disk     109,   0 Sep 11 19:23 group
> >
> > Kernel:
> > # rdev vmlinuz-2.4.10-pre7
> > Root device /dev/ram0   # Root device /dev/SYSDISK/Root
> >   (-> 0x3a00) does not make a difference
> > # rdev -R vmlinuz-2.4.10-pre7
> > Root flags 0    # i.e. mount ro
> > # rdev -r vmlinuz-2.4.10-pre7
> > Ramsize 49152   # i.e. offset=0; bit14=1: load ramdisk; bit15=1:
> >                 #   prompt before loading rootfs - this never happens!
> >
> > What am I supposed to change?  The kernel initrd.txt has a long and
> > complicated story on using pivot_root to switch rootfs, but apparently
> > the LVM linuxrc relies on the deprecated method that does this
> > automatically.
> >
> > Any advice welcome.
> >
> > --
> >
>
#>!$!%(@^%#%*(&(#@#*$^@^$##*#@&(%)@**$!(&!^(#((#&%!)%*@)(&$($$%(@#)&*!^$)^@*
> ^@)
> >
> > Tom "thriving on chaos" Peters
> > NL-1062 KD nr 149 tel.    +31-204080204
> >   Amsterdam e-mail  tpeters at xs4all.nl
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > linux-lvm mailing list
> > linux-lvm at sistina.com
> > http://lists.sistina.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm
> > read the LVM HOW-TO at http://www.sistina.com/lvm/Pages/howto.html
>
>
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