Re: Installation problem on HP DL360 G6 server

Am 13.02.2010 um 13:24:26 schrieb Emmanuel Chantry:

Le 12/02/2010 23:25, Michael Mohn a écrit :
Am 12.02.2010 um 23:16:14 schrieb Emmanuel Chantry:


Le 12/02/2010 22:30, Stan Hoeppner a écrit :

Emmanuel Chantry put forth on 2/12/2010 12:32 PM:


Hi,

I've tried to install a Debian Lenny on HP DL360 G6 server.
I have a RAID 5 smart array configured.
I use auto install with preseed. My partition are created through LVMs.

The first time I install Debian, everything is ok.
But when I try to install again over the existing installation with the
same preseed configuration, I have an error message : "Volume group name
already in use" with a continue/go back.
If I choose continue, I have another error message "No root filesystem
found".

Anyone else has had this error ? Is there a solution for that problem ?


The first thing you should ask yourself, and should tell us, is why are you
reinstalling over a fresh installation? That right there is odd behavior.

Is there actually something you want to accomplish with this Proliant server, or
do you just enjoy playing with the Debian installer?

Another question: You already have the SmartArray controller presenting you
with a single large block device. Why are you even using LVM? Is there
something you are trying to accomplish that can't be accomplished by slicing
that big block up with good 'ol primary and logical partitions? Do you *need*
LVM or are you using it because it's *neat*?


I've reinstalling over a fresh installation because if one day I have to reinstall OS for some reason I will install over an existing one.
I must validate the HP server for my company, we have many software under Linux we're currently using. I try to establish a procedure as simple as possible with minimal handling for our technicians.

LVM is used to allow me to extend a volume if needed for example if I must store a lot of data and my volume and I haven't enough space.

We have many different HP servers with 3, 4, 6 disks, but sometimes we don't mount all the disk in the active RAID, there are spares for extending LVM volumes.


you should add a preinstall script, that deletes all partitions, i think.
that way, there is a defined state to start the installation.

bye,

Michael.


I've tried to use a preinstall script with :

d-i preseed/early_command string \
       wget http://indus.mydomain/remove_parts.sh -O /tmp/remove_parts.sh; sh /tmp/remove_parts.sh

My script is like that :

#!/bin/sh

DISK='/dev/sda'
VG='debian'

echo "Installing required software utilities"
anna-install parted-udeb
anna-install lvm2-udeb

modprobe dm-mod
modprobe md-mod

# Remove each partition
echo "Removing existing partitions on disk $DISK"

vgremove -f VG

for v_partition in $(parted -s $DISK print | grep "^ " | tr -s ' ' | cut -d ' ' -f2)
do
  parted -s $DISK rm ${v_partition}
done

echo "All partitions removed"

This method works on a virtual machine without problems. But when I try this on my HP server it fails. My install is in amd64 not i386.
I've watched the steps of install in the debug console and it seems that in amd64, installation steps are not in the same order.

In i386 my anna-install command for udeb packages is done but in amd64 is queued for later install, and my script fails.

Any idea ?

### Partitioning
# If the system has free space you can choose to only partition that space.
#d-i partman-auto/init_automatically_partition select biggest_free

# Alternatively, you can specify a disk to partition. The device name must
# be given in traditional non-devfs format.
# Note: A disk must be specified, unless the system has only one disk.
# For example, to use the first SCSI/SATA hard disk:
#d-i partman-auto/disk string /dev/sda
# In addition, you'll need to specify the method to use.
# The presently available methods are: "regular", "lvm" and "crypto"
d-i partman-auto/method string lvm

# If one of the disks that are going to be automatically partitioned
# contains an old LVM configuration, the user will normally receive a
# warning. This can be preseeded away...
d-i partman-lvm/device_remove_lvm boolean true
# The same applies to pre-existing software RAID array:
d-i partman-md/device_remove_md boolean true
# And the same goes for the confirmation to write the lvm partitions.
d-i partman-lvm/confirm boolean true

# You can choose one of the three predefined partitioning recipes:
# - atomic: all files in one partition
# - home:   separate /home partition
# - multi:  separate /home, /usr, /var, and /tmp partitions
d-i partman-auto/choose_recipe select atomic

# Or provide a recipe of your own...
# The recipe format is documented in the file devel/partman-auto-recipe.txt.
# If you have a way to get a recipe file into the d-i environment, you can
# just point at it.
#d-i partman-auto/expert_recipe_file string /hd-media/recipe

that could be worth a try ;)

bye,

Michael.