Problems with 12.10, 13.04, 13.10 server installs

[Nicholas Skaggs]

On 07/25/2013 12:54 PM, Patrick Goetz wrote:
> Hi -
>
> I'm bringing this issue to the attention of this list in the hopes of 
> finding out where it is most appropriately addressed.
>
> I've recently done a number of server installs using mostly the 13.10 
> 64-bit pre-release ISO, but also testing the problem I'm about to 
> mention using 12.10 and 13.04.
>
> My current server build strategy, which I think is becoming fairly 
> common, is to use 2 SSDs in a software RAID 1 for OS/swap and the 
> either hardware RAID or another software RAID using traditional large 
> disks for data.  The problem seems to be with server hardware which 
> includes a BIOS fakeraid (in particular when fakeraid is turned off -- 
> fakeraid on doesn't seem to work, either, with exactly the same 
> symptoms).  The symptoms are the OS installs, grub seems to 
> successfully install on /dev/md0 or /dev/md127 (whichever md device 
> exists in /dev at the time of the install), but then the system won't 
> boot.  In the latest case, I can't even get to a grub rescue prompt - 
> the screen just hangs with a blinking dash.  When I do get a grub 
> rescue prompt (previous attempts on other hardware), it doesn't do 
> anything; i.e the grub commands don't work.
>
> The reason I suspect the fakeraid HBA is that recently I installed 2 
> superMicro servers, one from 2011 with no fakeraid, a more recent one 
> which does include fakeraid.  13.10 installed with no problems on the 
> older machine, but won't boot on the newer one as described above.  In 
> another case I had almost the same problem with a Dell server which 
> similarly came with an HBA with fakeraid.  The Dell server predates 
> UEFI, so I'm ruling this out as a source of the problem.
>
> The problem is subsequently resolved using the boot-repair package 
> from ppa:yannubuntu; i.e. I boot 13.04 live, install and run 
> boot-repair, and subsequently all is well.
>
> My question is, why isn't the installer getting the grub install right 
> in the first place?
>
> I tried taking this issue to the #ubuntu-server IRC, but that seems to 
> be a wasteland of people who are at best extremely inexperienced 
> asking questions about how to use bash and stuff like that.
>
> Since the problem also occurs with the 12.10 and 13.04 server ISO's, 
> I'm not sure that logging a bug on launchpad is the right way to go -- 
> the problem is not 13.10 specific.  My next step is to make a note of 
> all the grub configuration information after the initial installation 
> and then compare it to the modifications made by boot-repair (which is 
> a superb piece of work, btw).
>
> Any thoughts on a better forum to take this issue to?
>
Reporting a bug for this is the way to go, and you can go a long way if 
your able to follow this guide for debugging a bit as to what's going on 
in your setup.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingUbiquity

I'm also curious if the alternate installer causes you similar issues or 
not.

On the bug filing thing, yes please file and if it affects 12.04-13.10, 
well we can mark it as such and apply a fix to each ;-)

Cheers,

Nicholas