maas grub issue

Thu Nov 3 20:48:26 UTC 2016

My bios is configured to boot from the network with efi and I have
configured it to boot from local disk with efi.  What options do I put
on /dev/sde1 as the root partition to make it also work as an efi boot
partition? maas-2.0 keeps trying to do a grub-install on it and failing
because it is a gpt labeled disk.

I don't see any bios option for having the pxe boot be anything but
efi.  The disk boot has been set to efi.  How do I get maas to
configure it correctly as efi?

On Wed, 2016-10-12 at 15:25 -0400, Blake Rouse wrote:
> Try this:
> 
> On the machine details page:
> 
> 1. Delete all partitions on /dev/sde
> 2. Set /dev/sde as the boot disk.
> 3. Create a new partition on /dev/sde and mount it.
> 
> You should get a /dev/sde with a MBR partition where grub installs
> correctly. If MAAS assumes that your machine needs a GPT partition on
> the boot disk then its because it is UEFI booting from MAAS. If that
> is the case you should create a "/boot/efi" partition so grub-efi can
> be installed.
> 
> I would also check your BIOS to make sure your consistent on your
> booting method. Ensure that your system is booting UEFI for network
> and local storage, or make it boot legacy (MBR) for network and local
> storage.
> 
> On Wed, Oct 12, 2016 at 3:13 PM, Daniel Bidwell <drbidwell at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > I dumped my maas 1.9.4 and installed maas 2.0.
> > 
> > The client servers boot for discovery and commissioning.  When I
> > deploy
> > one of the machines it installs the system on the correct disk
> > /dev/sde1, but fails the deploy pretty much like it did with 1.9.4.
> > 
> > The following pastebin contains the maas log, the /var/log/cloud-
> > init.log and /var/log/cloud-init-output.log. 
> >  http://pastebin.com/raw/Sy3P8493
> > 
> > When I do a chroot from the ephemeral installer system to the root
> > system and do a grub-install /dev/sde I get the following error
> > messages.
> > 
> >  grub-install /dev/sde
> > Installing for i386-pc platform.
> > /proc/devices: fopen failed: No such file or directory
> > device node not found
> > device node not found
> > device node not found
> > /proc/devices: fopen failed: No such file or directory
> > device node not found
> > /proc/devices: fopen failed: No such file or directory
> > device node not found
> > /proc/devices: fopen failed: No such file or directory
> > device node not found
> > grub-install: warning: this GPT partition label contains no BIOS
> > Boot
> > Partition; embedding won't be possible.
> > grub-install: warning: Embedding is not possible.  GRUB can only be
> > installed in this setup by using blocklists.  However, blocklists
> > are
> > UNRELIABLE and their use is discouraged..
> > grub-install: error: will not proceed with blocklists.
> > 
> > How do I tell maas to create a BIOS boot partition in addition to
> > the
> > os partition?
> > 
> > On Thu, 2016-10-06 at 14:22 -0400, Andres Rodriguez wrote:
> > > Hi Daniel,
> > >
> > > While I do not know yet what exactly the issue you are facing is,
> > it
> > > sounds like a problem in hardware configuration. In some
> > situations,
> > > you need to make sure your machine is correctly configured in
> > MAAS in
> > > order to be usable. While MAAS does a pretty good job on
> > > automatically discovering information  and making some initial
> > > config, there may be corner cases where the hardware itself (BIOS
> > > config) prevent MAAS from working without doing some
> > configuration.
> > >
> > > In this case, it sounds like the BIOS may be configured to boot
> > of
> > > from a different disk than the one MAAS is installing the MBR/GTP
> > on.
> > > If that's the case, you could do one of two things: 
> > > You can either configure the machine in MAAS, and change the
> > 'Boot'
> > > flag to the disk that's the actual boot disk in the BIOS.
> > > Or you can configure your BIOS correctly to make sure the disk
> > that
> > > maps to /dev/sde is the boot disk.
> > > I'll ask for some more information on the bug report and we can
> > > follow the conversation there if so you wish.
> > >
> > > Thanks.
> > >
> > > https://bugs.launchpad.net/maas/+bug/1631083
> > >
> > > On Thu, Oct 6, 2016 at 11:18 AM, Daniel Bidwell <drbidwell at gmail.
> > com>
> > > wrote:
> > > > I have a maas-1.9.4 with servers with 4 2T disks for data
> > storage
> > > > and a
> > > > 120GB disk on an onboard controller for the system disk.  Maas
> > is
> > > > deploying ubuntu 16.04 on the servers.  Ubuntu 16.04 labels the
> > > > 120GB
> > > > system disk as /dev/sde, not /dev/sda.  In maas I can define
> > the
> > > > /sdev/sde disk as the system disk.
> > > >
> > > > juju bootstrap deploys the system and installs the OS on
> > /dev/sde1
> > > > but
> > > > fails to write the grub record to /dev/sde and leaves the disk
> > > > unbootable.  The system fails over to booting from an ephemeral
> > > > iscsi
> > > > file system where I can examine the state of the machine.
> > > >
> > > > The disk is formated with a GPT partition table which grub will
> > not
> > > > write to unless I manually create a small partition as
> > partition 1
> > > > with
> > > > blocks from 34-2047 and the system partition as partition 2.
> > > >
> > > > This manual step really not acceptable for deploying from juju
> > and
> > > > maas.
> > > >
> > > > How do I get maas to deploy the system in a way that it will
> > boot
> > > > without manual editing?
> > > > --
> > > > Daniel Bidwell <drbidwell at gmail.com>
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Maas-devel mailing list
> > > > Maas-devel at lists.ubuntu.com
> > > > Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mai
> > lman
> > > > /listinfo/maas-devel
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > -- 
> > > Andres Rodriguez
> > > Engineering Manager, MAAS
> > > Canonical USA, Inc.
> > --
> > Daniel Bidwell <drbidwell at gmail.com>
> > 
> > 
> > --
> > Maas-devel mailing list
> > Maas-devel at lists.ubuntu.com
> > Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman
> > /listinfo/maas-devel
> > 
-- 
Daniel Bidwell <drbidwell at gmail.com>