PowerPath for Linux: emcpbfs_linux remove fails in phase 2 "Updating /etc/fstab".

Summary: As part of a Linux OS upgrade, in a boot from SAN environment, the "emcpbfs_linux remove" script fails in Phase 2 ("Updating /etc/fstab").

This article applies to This article does not apply to This article is not tied to any specific product. Not all product versions are identified in this article.

Symptoms



Environment:      
Dell EMC SW: PowerPath for Linux (any release)
boot from SAN configuration
Non Dell EMC SW: XFS is used as a file system type.

Upgrading the OS requires the script "emcpbfs_linux remove" to run but the script fails in Phase 2 ("Updating /etc/fstab".

Using verbose mode ("set -v" at the beginning of the script), it appears that the "mount /boot" command, when using the UUID instead of the pseudo device name, fails with errno = 32. errno 32 means EPIPE (broken pipe).
 
+ for boot_mount in '$(cat $FSTAB | grep -v "^[ \t]*#" | grep '\''\/boot'\'' | awk '\''{ print $2}'\'' )'
+ mount /boot
+ '[' 32 -ne 0 ']'

When the mount is attempted manually, the following error is returned:     
[root@mycomputerr]# unmount /boot
[root@mycomputerr]# mount /boot
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdo1,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error

       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail or so
.
Looking at  "dmesg | tail", we find:     
 
[324415.326109] XFS (sdo1): Filesystem has duplicate UUID a62454e0-c20a-4adf-8cc3-283774a0be03 - can't mount
[324777.492534] XFS (sdo1): Filesystem has duplicate UUID a62454e0-c20a-4adf-8cc3-283774a0be03 - can't mount
[324871.730863] XFS (sdo1): Filesystem has duplicate UUID a62454e0-c20a-4adf-8cc3-283774a0be03 - can't mount

Cause

This is an XFS environment, the boot was done with a pseudo device. This means that the root file system, /boot, the swap, etc. are using this disk device. When the mount of /boot is done using the UUID, the system checks and finds that other filesystems are already using the device and returns error message:  " XFS (sdo1): Filesystem has duplicate UUID a62454e0-c20a-4adf-8cc3-283774a0be03 - can't mount". This is done to avoid double mounted filesystems using the filesystem uuid.

Either use a new UUID to mount /boot or add the option "-o nouuid" to the "mount command" in the script.

Resolution

In the case of XFS type root / boot filesystem.

Add a "-o nouuid" option to the mount in the emcpbfs_linux script:

         if [[ ${STATUS%%:*} != Failed ]]; then
            for boot_mount in $(cat $FSTAB | grep -v "^[ \t]*#" | grep "${boot_par}" | awk '{ print $2}' )
            do

               mount -o nouuid $boot_mount > /dev/null 2>&1


Note: This change is only valid for "XFS" boot file systems.

Affected Products

PowerPath for Linux

Products

PowerPath for Linux
Article Properties
Article Number: 000082122
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 17 Oct 2025
Version:  3
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