Re: mdadm error - superfluous RAID member
On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 4:47 AM, Steve Dowe <sd@warpuniversal.co.uk> wrote:
>
> I'm trying to re-use an older server, installing squeeze (6.0.5). I'm using
> software RAID and LVM on the machine (details below). But I must be doing
> something wrong with the disk set up stage in the installer, as when it
> boots I see an error flash up quickly:
>
> error: superfluous RAID member (5 found)
>
> It appears that the initramfs then gets loaded, the RAID detection fails and
> it then looks for the LVM volume group, which it can't find (as the LVM
> group exists on the RAID device). I see this output:
>
> Loading, please wait...
> mdadm: No devices listed in conf file were found.
> Volume group "vgbiff" not found
> Skipping volume group vgbiff
> Unable to find LVM volume vgbiff/lvroot
> <same messages appear but for lvswap>
> Gave up waiting for root device <snip>
> ...
>
> It then drops me into the BusyBox shell, with initramfs prompt.
>
> I can then activate the RAID simply by doing
>
> (initramfs) mdadm --assemble --scan
> mdadm: /dev/md/0 has been started with 5 drives and 1 spare.
>
> and then activate the volume group, using:
>
> (initramfs) vgchange -a y
> 2 logical volume(s) in volume group "vgbiff" now active
>
> Exiting the busybox shell then boots the system.
>
> The basic configuration is:
> - Xeon (64-bit capable) w/4GB RAM
> - PCI SCSI controller
> - 6 x 73GB SCSI drives
>
> During install, on each drive I created a 500MB primary partition (with
> /dev/sda1 being for /boot) and then a second partition for Linux s/w RAID
> (label set to fd).
>
> In /dev/md0 I then created a LVM partition, and set up the volume group to
> contain two volumes - one for swap, and one for /. /dev/md0 is comprised of
> 5 drives running in RAID5, with one hot spare.
>
> During installation, I took pains to wipe all the drives and create all
> partitions anew.
>
> When booted, I checked /etc/default/mdadm. The values INITRDSTART='all' and
> AUTOSTART=true are both set. I also set VERBOSE=true to give me more output
> when creating a new initramfs. I checked the contents of
> /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf - which seems fine.
>
> I then issued "update-initramfs -vu", and saw the following:
>
> I: mdadm: using configuration file: /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf
> I: mdadm: will start all available MD arrays from the initial ramdisk.
> I: mdadm: use `dpkg-reconfigure --priority=low mdadm` to change this.
>
> and the last output before cpio builds the initial ramdisk is
>
> Calling hook dmsetup
>
> - so, in my limited knowledge, this suggests the drive mapper is
> incorporated into the initramfs also.
>
> When I take a peek into /boot/grub/grub.cfg I see:
>
> insmod raid
> insmod raid5rec
> insmod mdraid
> insmod lvm
>
> in the 00_header section.
>
>
> I'm running low on ideas now. Re-installing grub doesn't help. Running
> "update-grub" simply dumps out many more of those error messages:
>
> error: superfluous RAID member (5 found).
> <repeats 17 times>
>
> So it does point to grub being at fault somewhere, rather than the initrd.
Maybe this bug:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=610184
(What mdraid metadata version are you using?)
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