[Bug 1487365] Re: Ubuntu14.04 .3 RAID installation fails on firestone

[Steve Langasek]

There are multiple related issues here.

 - partman-md does not support assembling a RAID1 array out of a set of whole disks; it only supports assembling an array out of partitions.  It *should* support using whole disks, so that you have the option of partitioning the RAID array and having those partitions show through on the underlying block devices in a way that is meaningful to the firmware.
 - in the absence of such support in partman-md, users are led down the garden path *thinking* they're creating arrays out of the disks when they're actually creating full-disk partitions on the component disks and RAIDing those.  partman-prep should warn the user *early* (i.e., at the partitioning stage) that they've created themselves an impossible-to-boot partition layout, and guide them to go back to fix it.
 - grub-installer should support installing to multiple PReP partitions in parallel for proper full redundancy in the face of a disk failure.  This can be achieved in one of two ways:
  - the user can create a RAID1 of two partitions on different disks (e.g. /dev/sda1+/dev/sdb1 -> /dev/md0), and grub-installer can support installing to this as a PReP partition; or
  - grub-installer can detect multiple PReP partitions (possibly requiring the user to manually specify each one that they want to use) and install the necessary boot record to each of them in turn.

The 2nd and 3rd issues should be relatively straightforward to fix.  The
first issue is going to require some redesign of partman-md and is not
something we'll want to take on for 15.10.

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Title:
  Ubuntu14.04 .3 RAID installation fails on firestone

Status in debian-installer package in Ubuntu:
  In Progress
Status in partman-md package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Problem Description
  =======================
  Installation goes smoothly, until it reaches grub installation, and fails with fatal error there.
   
  Machine Type = pio-firestone 
   
  ---boot type---
  QEMU direct boot kernel/initrd
   
  ---Kernel cmdline used to launch install---
  kexec -l /root/vmlinux.venkat -i /root/initrd.gz.venkat
  kexec -e

  == Comment: # - Venkat R. B <venkatb3 at in.ibm.com> - 2015-08-14 08:08:41 ==
  I am trying to install Ubuntu14.04 on the firestone machine on a RAID1 array, configured with software raid.
  Installation goes on smoothly till its reaches grub loader and fails. Below I have pasted the error.

               ?? [!!] Install the GRUB boot loader on a hard disk ??
    ????????????                                                    ? ?????????
    ?          ?        Unable to install GRUB in /dev/md0p1        ?         ?
    ?          ? Executing 'grub-install /dev/md0p1' failed.        ?         ?
    ?          ?                                                    ?         ?
    ? Running "? This is a fatal error.                             ?         ?
    ?          ?                                                    ?         ?
    ????????????     <Go Back>                       <Continue>     ? ?????????
               ?                                                    ?
               ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????

  == Comment: # - Mauricio Faria De Oliveira <mauricfo at br.ibm.com> - 2015-08-20 09:31:11 ==
  grub-installer pieces from syslog

  Aug 19 11:07:43 grub-installer: info: Installing grub on '/dev/md0p1'
  Aug 19 11:07:43 grub-installer: info: grub-install does not support --no-floppy
  Aug 19 11:07:43 grub-installer: info: Running chroot /target grub-install  --force "/dev/md0p1"
  Aug 19 11:07:43 grub-installer: Installing for powerpc-ieee1275 platform.
  Aug 19 11:08:01 grub-installer: grub-install: error: failed to copy Grub to the PReP partition.
  Aug 19 11:08:01 grub-installer: error: Running 'grub-install  --force "/dev/md0p1"' failed.

  and the "error:" message 'failed to copy Grub to the PReP partition.'
  is not generated by the grub-installer script itself [1], so probably
  coming down from grub2.

  I'd suggest to either involve our grub2 guy (not sure if available),
  or mirroring to Canonical.


  [1] http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-branches/ubuntu/trusty/grub-
  installer/trusty-updates/view/head:/grub-installer

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