initrd-tools: System with 3ware 9500 fails to boot after clean Sarge install

[Debian Bug Importer]

Automatically imported from Debian bug report #318326 http://bugs.debian.org/318326

[Jeff Bailey (jbailey)]

Marking this as NotWarty for now. We're not using 2.6.8, nor are we using
initrd-tools for Breezy. initramfs-tools contains the 3w_9xxx module, so it
ought to work.

If someone knows otherwise, please feel free to reopen this bug.

Thanks!

Tks,
Jeff Bailey

[Debian Bug Importer (debzilla)]

Message-Id: <email address hidden>
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 20:45:26 +0200
From: Luc Stroobant <email address hidden>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <email address hidden>
Subject: initrd-tools: System with 3ware 9500 fails to boot after clean Sarge install

Package: initrd-tools
Version: 0.1.81.1
Severity: critical
Justification: breaks the whole system

The subject says it all. When you install Debian Sarge on a machine (Supermicro SuperServer) with a 3ware 9500 SATA (hardware) RAID controller, the installer detects the card fine. System gets installed on /dev/sdax without any problems, but at the reboot after the installation proces, it fails to boot. (hangs after "...savedefault\nboot")
I tried installing both the 2.4 and the 2.6 kernel, nothing worked.

Google learned me this:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-amd64/2004/09/msg00254.html

"Yeah, from a shell on another console in debian-installer, I had to
manually add 3w_9xxx to /etc/mkinitrd/modules and run
mkinitrd -o /boot/initrd.img-2.6.8-1-k7-smp 2.6.8-1-k7-smp"

I tried this, booting the system with a live-cd an mounting /.
Adjusted the path for modules etc and after rebuilding the initrd, I was able to boot the server.
After that, I installed a new custom kernel with 3w_9xxx support an without initrd support (just to be sure ;-) and everything is working fine now. I guess this is some bug in the initrd-tools or initrd.img that gets installed with Sarge. I hope this can be fixed in 3.1r1.

lspci -v:
http://www.stroobant.be/lspci.txt

When you need more details or tests, just ask.

Luc

[Debian Bug Importer (debzilla)]

Message-Id: <email address hidden>
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 15:12:45 -0400
From: Josh Wilmes <email address hidden>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <email address hidden>
Subject: initrd-tools: Same here. (3W-6200)

Package: initrd-tools
Version: 0.1.82
Followup-For: Bug #318326

I have a 3ware 3W-6200, and after a kernel upgrade i found that my system
would no longer boot. Since i'd (stupidly) removed the old working
kernel package, recovery was a real pain in the neck.

I finally did figure out that the problem was corrected by adding 3w-xxxx
to /etc/mkinitrd/modules and running mkinitrd to re-generate the initrd with
this module included.

I've never had this problem before, so i'm guessing that a default has
changed somewhere!

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.4.27-2-k7
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages initrd-tools depends on:
ii coreutils [fileutils] 5.2.1-2.1 The GNU core utilities
ii cpio 2.6-6 GNU cpio -- a program to manage ar
ii cramfsprogs 1.1-6 Tools for CramFs (Compressed ROM F
ii dash 0.5.2-8 The Debian Almquist Shell
ii fileutils 5.2.1-2.1 The GNU file management utilities
ii util-linux 2.12p-8 Miscellaneous system utilities

initrd-tools recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information

[Debian Bug Importer (debzilla)]

Message-ID: <email address hidden>
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 21:31:12 +0200
From: Sven Luther <email address hidden>
To: Josh Wilmes <email address hidden>, <email address hidden>
Subject: Re: Bug#318326: initrd-tools: Same here. (3W-6200)

On Wed, Oct 19, 2005 at 03:12:45PM -0400, Josh Wilmes wrote:
> Package: initrd-tools
> Version: 0.1.82
> Followup-For: Bug #318326
>
>
> I have a 3ware 3W-6200, and after a kernel upgrade i found that my system
> would no longer boot. Since i'd (stupidly) removed the old working
> kernel package, recovery was a real pain in the neck.
>
> I finally did figure out that the problem was corrected by adding 3w-xxxx
> to /etc/mkinitrd/modules and running mkinitrd to re-generate the initrd with
> this module included.

Can you try yaird or the upcoming initramfs-tools with the 2.6.12 kernel in
etch/sid. 2.4 kernels are no more the default choice even on x86, and
initrd-tools is going to be phased out in favour of yaird or initramfs-tools
pretty soon, since kernels newer than 2.6.13 have no devfs support which
initrd-tools needed.

> I've never had this problem before, so i'm guessing that a default has
> changed somewhere!

Indeed, or maybe the name of the module ? A /sys reading ramdisk generating
tool like yaird should not have this problem.

Friendly,

Sven Luther