[Bug 1905412] Re: LVM install broken if other disks have meta-data on the VG name already

[Frank Heimes]

Even if I think that this is not s390x-specific, I'm marking this as
affecting s390x, since one bumped into this while doing an (LPAR)
install on s390x.

** Tags added: installer s390x

** Also affects: subiquity
   Importance: Undecided
       Status: New

** Also affects: ubuntu-z-systems
   Importance: Undecided
       Status: New

** No longer affects: subiquity (Ubuntu)

** Changed in: ubuntu-z-systems
     Assignee: (unassigned) => Canonical Foundations Team (canonical-foundations)

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1905412

Title:
  LVM install broken if other disks have meta-data on the VG name
  already

Status in subiquity:
  New
Status in Ubuntu on IBM z Systems:
  New
Status in curtin package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Hi,
  I was puzzled today at my install aborting until I was looking in the crash file.
  There I've found:
   Running command ['vgcreate', '--force', '--zero=y', '--yes', 'ubuntu-vg', '/dev/dasda2'] with allowed return codes [0] (capture=True)
   An error occured handling 'lvm_volgroup-0': ProcessExecutionError - Unexpected error while running command.
   Command: ['vgcreate', '--force', '--zero=y', '--yes', 'ubuntu-vg', '/dev/dasda2']
   Exit code: 5
   Reason: -
   Stdout: ''
   Stderr:   A volume group called ubuntu-vg already exists.

  And now things fall into place.

  I've had a default vg as the installer creates it across a few disks.
  Then later my main root disk was broken and I replaced it.

  Now at install time I have activated all disks that I eventually
  wanted to use (this is s390x therefore activate disks, but from the
  bit I see in the crash I'd expect no other behavior if on e.g. x86
  you'd replace one disk and try to re-install).

  What happens is that the disks I'm not installing onto still have LVM metadata.
  That has the "ubuntu-vg" defined and thereby crashes the install.

  I think we will need to harden the installer that probably needs to
  wipe some signatures and re-probe LVM to then get things going.

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