Hi
[Keywords: UFS, slices, partitions, disc-device naming]
I like to explain my situation precisely (sorry, longish):
I'm running Linux 2.2.12 Kernel (SuSE 6.2 distribution) on a PC (AMD-K6-III)
having (among other SCSI discs containing a 2.2.13 system) a EIDE Maxtor disc.
This disc is partitioned with fdisk under this Linux into 3 primary partitions,
named /dev/hda1, /dev/hda2, /dev/hda3, and an dos-extended fourth called
earlier(!) /dev/hda4. With this fdisk tool I created further logical partitions
inside the fourth partition. These were(!) named /dev/hda5, /dev/hda6,
/dev/hda7, .... , /dev/hda14.
On these partitions I installed half a year ago a running Linux 2.2.12 system.
The partition /dev/hda7 contains the / file-system, the /dev/hda9 the /usr fs
, the /dev/hda2 a separate /boot fs, etc.
All worked well ... until yesterday.
Yesterday night, I run Solaris-2.7 and created INSIDE the /dev/hda3 partition
Solaris slices named s0,s1,...,s8 by the Solaris system.
Later I tried to boot again the old Linux 2.2.12 system, The kernel was loaded
and started (from the /dev/hda2 partition) and it displayed the disc structur as
/dev/hda1, /dev/hda2, /dev/hda3 <Solaris slices named /dev/hda4, ...., /dev/hda12>, /dev/hda13, /dev/hda14 ,... /dev/hda22.
So, the Kernel 2.2.12 renamed the old logical partitions and named the solaris
slices inside the third partitions as if they were partitions, themselves!
This has the effect that the old logical partitions seemed to be named-increased
by 8 and because the kernel can't find his root file-system with his built-in
name /dev/hda7 it panics.
Well --- bad.
Next I mounted with the SCSI system running Linux 2.2.13 the /dev/hda15 (the old
/dev/hda7) root file system and renamed all entries in its /etc/fstab.
Then I booted again the Linux 2.2.12 kernel with the parameter root=/dev/hda15
and it booted and found its correct / filesystem, but it didn't find any
other fs /dev/hda16, /dev/hda17, ... and because fsck can't got access of these devices, it went into interactive repair mode after prompting for the root-passwd.
I went into this maintenance mode and was stuck when looking into the /etc/mtab:
only /proc /dev/fd and /dev/hda7 (NOT /dev/hda15) was listed!
But it was the correct root system on the logical Linux devices /dev/hda15 and
THIS was really mounted. The /dev/hda7 holds a Solaris partition when I mounted
it for testing. Furthermore there were no devices /dev/hda16, /dev/hda17, ... .
I think there is a serious naming bug inside the kernel about giving partition
names. Furthermore, I would call it a design bug to call the slices in a
partition like partitions (so it appears that the system can't distinguish
them from real partitions --- at least it seems to me --- and this mixing-up
happened).
I apologize if this is an already known or even solved problem in the 2.3.xx
but I can't find information on this topic after browsing for about half an hour
in the URL http://www.kernelnotes.org/ .
PS: Would you please redirect this email to the correct email partner.
PS2: There just springs an idea to my mind: I shall try to create these missing
/dev/hda16, .... /dev/hda22 special files (I think I can guess the right
major/minor numbers) to get access of these partitions inside Linux.
Regards,
achim
-- Achim Flammenkamp FSP Mathematisierung Universität Bielefeld UniversitätsstraBe 25 33501 Bielefeld Federal Republic of Germany POB 100131 http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/~achim/ achim@uni-bielefeld.de (+49)(0)521-106-3852 UTC+2=MEDST < Game of Life and Go Fan >- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Mar 31 2000 - 21:00:21 EST