Re: Install config help needed

> Then if I try to do and install pxe loads then a lot of text flies by and
> then see....
> Begin: Loading essential drivers ... done
> Begin: Running /scripts/init-premount ... done
> Begin: Mount root file system ... /init: .: line 249: can't open
> 'scripts/live'

Your nfsroot may not have the required initramfs packages. So that would
be a start. (I have a running Ubuntu 10.04 nfsroot, so I know at least
this one is fine.) The package was renamed in between.

Ubuntu 10.04LTS: initramfs-tools
Ubuntu 12.04LTS: live-boot-initramfs-tools

Maybe this is a follow-up error on not having aptitude in your nfsroot,
maybe it's not.

(Don't forget to update the initramfs and copy the new initrd to your
tftp-server after installing the package. But you probably already thought
about that. ;) )

Re: Install config help needed

On Thu, 2012-05-24 at 17:08 -0700, Steve B. wrote:
> Been trying for a week to get FAI to work on a Ubuntu 12.04 with no
> success.   I have been testing both a physical and virtual target and
> same results. I have FAI 3.4.8 installed.

While in principle FAI should work under Ubuntu, I would recommend
Debian stable for the learning stage. That is the environment FAI is
primarily targeted for, and seems to have the largest user base as well.

Once you have mastered installing a basic Debian system with FAI (off a
Debian faiserver), you can consider switching the installation target to
Ubuntu, or trying an Ubuntu FAI server, or eventually both.

It is good to keep the working Debian FAI server available for
reference, so that you can compare your failing installations with
successful ones, and spot differences. If physical hosts are scarce, the
FAI server can be transfered to a virtual machine, but again, for
learning I would start with physical host in order to avoid initial
problems with networking setup.

Hoping this helps,

Toomas Tamm

Re: Install config help needed

Op 25-5-2012 2:08, Steve B. schreef:
> Been trying for a week to get FAI to work on a Ubuntu 12.04 with no 
> success.   I have been testing both a physical and virtual target and 
> same results. I have FAI 3.4.8 installed.
>
> I get a couple errors running fai-setup that are numeric 65280 but 
> can't find a description of that error.  It occurs after text.. 
> "Writing Extended State information.. , Reading task description.... 
> after that a bunch of configure errors.  The ends with ERROR: 
> live-initranfs was not installed.

Hi Steve,

Are you using aptitude or apt-get to create your NFS root (which is what 
you do with fai-setup)? When you install FAI quickstart, it will come 
with examples that default to aptitude. But aptitude is not installed by 
default anymore in Ubuntu.

You have two options:
One option would be to rewrite the examples to use apt-get. To do this, 
you open /etc/fai/NFSROOT and find the lines that start with 'PACKAGES 
aptitude'. You should replace the word 'aptitude' with 'install'.
Another option would be to install aptitude. ('sudo apt-get install 
aptitude') This is the option I chose.

Judging from the errors you get, I assume you've already installed 
aptitude. Ubuntu 12.04 ships with aptitude 0.6.6-1ubuntu1, and that 
version contains a bug. This is fixed in aptitude 0.6.7-1.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/aptitude/+bug/975793

Install config help needed

Fai 4.0.1 Compatible with Debian Lenny?

Hi,
Found the latest fai .deb packages here:
http://cdn.debian.net/debian/pool/main/f/fai/fai-server_4.0.1_all.deb
http://cdn.debian.net/debian/pool/main/f/fai/fai-doc_4.0.1_all.deb
Our internal pxe/samba/nfs/dhcp server is still running lenny.
Q1. Is the .deb packages above compatible with lenny?
Q2. If so, what are the gotchas installing the above packages into 
debian lenny?
Q3. Are there any documentation or howto on this subject?
Thanks!
Kwon

whole disk RAID partitioned directly, with Grub BIOS partition

Hello,

We are using FAI 3.48 with Ubuntu 12.04. We are trying to come up with a 
working setup-storage config for whole disk RAID. We've managed to put 
together a configuration with LVM, but we can't get grub2 to install in 
that configuration, so we would like to avoid LVM altogether and keep it 
simple. The working LVM-based config is such:

disk_config raid
raid1  -  sda,sdb - -

disk_config lvm
vg  vg0   md0
vg0-root /    16000 ext4 rw,errors=remount-ro createopts="-m3"
vg0-swap swap 4000  swap sw
vg0-var  /var 5000  ext4 rw                   createopts="-m5"

I will enumerate what we would like to accomplish:

1) Be able to parition /dev/m0 directly without LVM. When paritioning an 
md device, setup-storage tries find a partition /dev/md01, whereas the 
partition really is /dev/md0p1. We tried to do this with:

disk_config /dev/md0

2) We would like to give options to mdadm (e.g. to set metadata to 0.9),

3) We would like to be able to give options to parted (e.g. to create a 
GRUB BIOS boot partition). The option to parted needs to be of the form 
"set N bios_grub on", where N is the partition number.

Here is an example config that we would like to be able to give to 
setup-storage:
===============================================
disk_config raid
raid1  -  sda,sdb - -             raidopts="--metadata=0.9"

disk_config /dev/md0
primary  -           8     -    - partedopts="set 1 bios_grub on"
primary  /       15000  ext4    rw,errors=remount-ro    createopts="-m3"
logical  swap     1000  swap    sw
logical  /var     2000  ext4    rw                      createopts="-m5"
===============================================

Please note the "raidopts" and "partedopts" settings above. We thought 
it would not be possible to use "createopts" here, due to ambiguity, but 
that may not be the case.

We couldn't see an updated manual for FAI 4.0. Is any of this in there? 
Alternatively, has there been any work done to implement any of the 
above, and if not would you accept a patch if we take our stab at adding 
support for this?

Many thanks!

Iordan Iordanov
CDF System Administrator,
University of Toronto

manual redhat grub configuration?

Hello

Maybe someone has already done this. I'm currently a bit at a loss on how
to manually configure a RedHat (or more specifically OracleLinux 6) grub
bootloader.

It seems most of the work is done via /sbin/new-kernel-pkg which is called
automatically while installing a new kernel image. However some parts are
missing. (Namely a default /boot/grub/grub.conf, some symlinks and
/etc/sysconfig/grub)

What I've done so far:

1.) Create a base image

yum --installroot=/tmp/scratch groupinstall Base
chroot /tmp/scratch/ su -
yum remove kernel kernel-firmware
rpm -e kernel --noscripts

[Maybe removing the kernel is a mistake. But I don't need it at this stage
and apart from that it fails to install properly anyhow due to a missing
/etc/fstab]

2.) configure repository

[modify prepareapt hook]
fcopy /etc/yum.repos.d/public-yum-ol6.repo

3.) create files & symlinks

[modify instsoft hook]

$target/etc/sysconfig/grub should contain:

boot=/dev/sda
forcelba=0

default=0
timeout=5
hiddenmenu

ln -sf '../boot/grub/grub.conf' "$target/etc/grub.conf"
ln -sf './grub.conf'            "$target/boot/grub/menu.lst"

4.) ???

At the moment I try to force-feed a working kernel boot config into
grub.conf manually, but I really like to do it properly. I'm not confident
that my manual intervention will survive the next kernel-update.

bye
thomas

Proper way to find out if an (initial) installation is being performed?

Hello

In the original prepareapt hook, there are (were?) two different if-clauses:

if [ -f /var/run/fai/FAI_INSTALLATION_IN_PROGRESS ]; then

if [ $do_init_tasks -eq 1 ] ; then

I'm not too sure what they are supposed to mean so I ask for
clarification. Judging from the code/names they seem to guard the enclosed
code against running during a softupdate.

a) What's the difference between these two? Is there any?
b) What is the proper/best/most obvious/recommended way to let code run
only during the initial installation?
c) Does install/dirinstall make a difference?

bye
thomas

install 32Bit-packages on 64Bit-system failed

Hello,

is it correct, that a nfsroot for Ubuntu precise 64Bit-architecture 
cannot install packages for 32Bit-achitecture? Our nfsroot don't find 
32Bit-packages in the repository, only 64Bit-packages.
The command 'uptitude update' fetch only the 64Bit-packages. And I get 
the error message "No candidate  version found for <package>".

If I run the command 'aptitude update' outside the nfsroot, the 
32Bit-packages are fetched too. And I can install this packages too.

What can I do, so that 32Bit-packages are installed during the 
fai-installation?

Thanks for your answers.
Regards,
Sabine

setup-storage and partitions greater than 2Tb

Hi, 

I have a machine with a 3Tb disk array.  I have been building servers with fan 3.4.7 and the patch
setup-storage_gpt-bios-fix (see below).

I have since upgraded to Fai 3.4.8, but I'm no longer able to create partitions bigger than 2Tb using a
gps-bios disk label.  Using a GPT label works fine, but this leave the machine in a state where it does not boot.

If I apply the Sizes.pm part of the patch, setup-storage creates partitions that are the correct size, but
then there's no partition for parted to set grub_bios on.

I'm not very familiar with the setup-storage code and it's flow, so I'm having trouble debugging.  If
anybody could help me with a quicker answer, I would be greatly appreciative!

Thanks,

George

setup-storage_gpt-bios-fix:
--- branches/experimental/patches/setup-storage_gpt-bios-fix (rev 0)
+++ branches/experimental/patches/setup-storage_gpt-bios-fix 2010-09-17 17:04:13 UTC (rev 6057)
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+2010-09-17 Michael Tautschnig <mt at debian.org>
+
+ * setup-storage/{Parser.pm,Sizes.pm}: Make extra partition for gpt-bios the
+ first one.
+Index: trunk/lib/setup-storage/Parser.pm
+===================================================================
+--- trunk.orig/lib/setup-storage/Parser.pm
++++ trunk/lib/setup-storage/Parser.pm 
+@@ -605,6 +605,20 @@
+ # supported by parted could be allowed, but others are not implemented
+ # yet
+ $FAI::configs{$FAI::device}{disklabel} = $1;
++
++ # on gpt-bios we'll need an partition at the very beginning to store what
++ # doesn't fit in the MBR
++ if ($1 eq "gpt-bios") {
++ &FAI::init_part_config("primary");
++ $FAI::configs{$FAI::device}{gpt_bios_part} = $FAI::partition_pointer->{number};
++ my $s = &FAI::convert_unit("1MiB");
++ # enter the range into the hash
++ $FAI::partition_pointer->{size}->{range} = "$s-$s";
++ # set proper defaults
++ $FAI::partition_pointer->{encrypt} = 0;
++ $FAI::partition_pointer->{filesystem} = "-";
++ $FAI::partition_pointer->{mountpoint} = "-";
++ }
+ }
+ | /^bootable:(\d+)/
+ {
+Index: trunk/lib/setup-storage/Sizes.pm
+===================================================================
+--- trunk.orig/lib/setup-storage/Sizes.pm
++++ trunk/lib/setup-storage/Sizes.pm 
+@@ -655,19 +655,6 @@
+ 
+ # the space required by the GPTs
+ $min_req_total_space += 33 * $current_disk->{sector_size};
+-
+- # on gpt-bios we'll need an additional partition to store what doesn't fit
+- # in the MBR
+- $FAI::device = $config;
+- &FAI::init_part_config("primary");
+- $FAI::configs{$config}{gpt_bios_part} = $FAI::partition_pointer->{number};
+- my $s = &FAI::convert_unit("120KiB");
+- # enter the range into the hash
+- $FAI::partition_pointer->{size}->{range} = "$s-$s";
+- # set proper defaults
+- $FAI::partition_pointer->{encrypt} = 0;
+- $FAI::partition_pointer->{filesystem} = "-";
+- $FAI::partition_pointer->{mountpoint} = "-";
+ }
+ 
+ # the list of partitions that we need to find start and end bytes for

--

-- 
George Barnett
Sent with Sparrow (http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/?sig)

Fai-mirror failing after upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04

Hello everyone,

My FAI setup was working just fine on Ubuntu 11.10. But I decided to 
upgrade to 12.04, and now fai-mirror doesn't work.

There seems to be a bug in aptitude with the -d switch. It creates an 
infinite loop. This is fixed in aptitude 0.6.7-1.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/aptitude/+bug/975793

Now I installed 0.6.7-1 and the infinite loop is gone. But I still don't 
have a correct mirror. The relevant output:

fai-mirror -v /srv/fai/mirror

Download complete and in download only mode
Calling apt-move

Updating from local Packages files...

Moving files...
Skipping files:
[ Lots of files here ]
Moving Files:
[ Lots of files here ]

File deletes disabled, skipping.

Creating Packages files...
Creating Release files...

All done, exiting.
grep: /srv/fai/mirror/dists//Release: No such file or directory

The directories /srv/fai/mirror/dists and /srv/fai/mirror/pool are empty.

Can anyone help me?

With kind regards,

Jurrie