[rhelv6-list] initrd and kickstarting

[Eugene Vilensky]

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 9:07 PM, Darren Patterson
<darren.patterson at stanford.edu> wrote:
> Since rhel3 I have been making custom initrd files by removing hba drivers to ensure a SAN safe pxe/kickstart build.  It used to be that a race condition could make a SAN presented device /dev/sda, instead of the first local scsi drive, and thus the OS would install there.
>
> Does anyone know if I should continue this practice with rhel6 initrd files or has this problem been resolved?


The Storage Administration Guide continues to read:
------
21.3. Persistent Naming
The operating system issues I/O to a storage device by referencing the
path that is used to reach it. For SCSI devices, the path consists of
the following:
PCI identifier of the host bus adapter (HBA)
channel number on that HBA
the remote SCSI target address
the Logical Unit Number (LUN)
This path-based address is not persistent. It may change any time the
system is reconfigured (either by on-line reconfiguration, as
described in this manual, or when the system is shutdown,
reconfigured, and rebooted). It is even possible for the path
identifiers to change when no physical reconfiguration has been done,
as a result of timing variations during the discovery process when the
system boots, or when a bus is re-scanned.
-----

The "race condition" "problem" you are describing is more like a feature.