[RE]LVM + dmraid

[David Abrahams]

David Abrahams <dave at boost-consulting.com> writes:

> David Abrahams <dave at boost-consulting.com> writes:
>
>> "big_spender12" <big_spender12 at lycos.com> writes:
>>
>>>>
>>> BusyBox v1.01 (Debian 1:1.01-4ubuntu3) Built-in shell (ash)
>>> < snip..>
>>>
>>> Hi Dave,
>>>
>>> Looks like they are using busybox in the initial ramdisk. It
>>> provides some basic shell commands such as mount with a small memory
>>> requirement (commands are all static linked in). I suspect you are
>>> having problems with the busybox not supporting mounting of your
>>> type of raid.
>>>
>>> The fix would be to not use the internal busybox mount command but
>>> include your own mount command (statically linked so the file will
>>> be large) into the inital ramdisk and use that instead.
>>>
>>> For example I noticed that Fedora Core 5 uses busybox in anaconda
>>> initial installer and that mount command doesn't work with "UUID="
>>> type mounts. Redhat nash (similar to busybox) that is installed for
>>> the normal boot does support the UUID= for it's internal mount
>>> command.  Hope this points you in the right direction,
>>
>> Wow, thanks, James; I think it might.  But now I need to know how to
>> build an appropriate initrd.  Got a link somewhere that I can follow?
>
> Well, for what it's worth, I tried going into
> /etc/mkinitramfs/initramfs.conf and setting 
>
>   BUSYBOX=n
>
> and then I did
>
>   initramfs-update -c -k <my-kernel-version>
>
> but that ultimately had exactly zero effect, including that I still
> dropped into BusyBox upon failure.
>
> I'm at a total loss.  I can't even find docs for initramfs-update out
> there.  Desperation is beginning to set in... :(

I think I'm going to disagree with you about busybox and dmraid.  My
straight-ahead dmraid partitions are working just fine.  For example,
I can mount and unmount the /boot partition and I can see all the
files there.  It's just the LVM partitions that cause me grief.
(they only show lost+found once mounted).  So I think this is an
LVM-related problem.

Incidentally, mounting anything (even /boot) gives me a 'cramfs: wrong
magic' message.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com