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buffcoat

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19 years ago

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buffcoat

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October 29th, 2007 08:00

rhel 5 powerpath 5.0.1 problem

Here's the problem I'm having. I have rhel5 2.6.18 kernel, and PowerPath 5.0.1 patch b022 on a Dell 2950. If I have the /dev/emcpower device or an emcpower device LUN wrapped in LVM, in the fstab file, the host fails to boot complaining it cannot find the device.

Looking at the rc.sysinit file, it seems the host runs an fsck on all the filesystems in fstab (if they have that option enabled) before PowerPath is loaded. So, any partition that's in fstab, that has the fsck option set, won't work. If I set the fsck option to 0, which I don't want to do, it works fine.

**Looks like another forum member Celso Capao, has run into the same problem, using the same work around**

Message was edited by:
buffcoat

Message was edited by:
buffcoat
  • jem3

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    Posted January 10th, 2008 10:00

    We're also having this problem. Just wondering if there's been any update?
  • rawstorage

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    Posted January 30th, 2008 05:00

    Mounting the PowerPath devices with "_netdev" option permits boot-time fsck on PowerPath pseudo-devices (and also on Logical Volumes created out of PowerPath pseudo-devices). The fsck is performed by S25netfs after network services are up (PowerPath is already started by then).

    The fsckorder (6th column on /etc/fstab) may be marked as necessary (a value greater than 0 performs boot-time fsck).

    Sample /etc/fstab file:
    -----------------------
    /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 / ext3 defaults 1 1
    /dev/emcpowerl /mnt/mnta ext2 _netdev 0 2
    /dev/emcpowerd /mnt/mntb ext3 _netdev 0 0
    /dev/vg_emcp_xov/lvol0 /mnt/mnto ext2 _netdev 0 3

    /dev/vg_emcp_xov/lvol0 is a LV created out of PowerPath pseudo-devices.

    It needs to be documented that PowerPath devices should be mounted with "_netdev" option in /etc/fstab to permit boot-time fsck.

    The documentation will be updated to reflect this.
  • dynamox

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    Posted January 30th, 2008 06:00

    Paul,

    is _netdev requirement something new that has to be done with PP5, we have never used _netdev with PP4.5 ..but i wonder if this is something we have to pay attention to when we upgrade to PP5.

    Thanks
  • rawstorage

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    Posted January 30th, 2008 07:00

    Dynamox, this is specific to version 5.x
  • rawstorage

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    Posted January 30th, 2008 07:00

    This issue has been documented in the Linux 5.1 Release Notes;

    These are not available on powerlink as yet..

    Message was edited by:
    PaulCork
  • dynamox

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    Posted January 30th, 2008 08:00

    Thank you
  • Conor

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    Posted February 4th, 2008 04:00

    The PP5.1 release notes are now available on PowerLink: from p30:
    ===
    The _netdev option in /etc/fstab
    PowerPath devices should be mounted with "_netdev" option in
    /etc/fstab to permit boot-time fsck. For RHEL 5 and 5.1, in an iSCSI
    setup, PowerIscsi is run as service S24. This configures the PowerPath
    devices and makes them available to S25netfs to perform fsck on
    them.
    ===
  • dynamox

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    Posted February 4th, 2008 10:00

    CB,

    does it also apply to RHEL 4 with Powerpath 5.1 ?

    Thanks
  • Conor

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    Posted February 4th, 2008 23:00

    Hi Dynamox,

    the Release notes are non-specific regarding RHEL version, I have checked the OPT that this bug was reported to EMC and it was on the RHEL5 platform... I will do more reseach into previous cases and see if RHEL4 is affected the same way... Will update you shortly.
  • dynamox

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    Posted February 5th, 2008 11:00

    great ..thank you