11.04 with Software Raid5 fails to install correctly

[Ed Barta]

I'm using 3@3TB drives, and I would like to setup Ubuntu in a software RAID5 configuration.

When I tell the installer to setup the partitions automatically, it gives me 3 partitions. I have tried setting the first partition on each drive to a BIOSGRUB without raid and it fails to install correctly, meaning sometimes it will give me errors when the installer gets to the step to install GRUB, and other times I've been able to install fully, but when it reboots, the install will either hang right after the BIOS load, or will provide me a GRUB installer error.
When I try to use the first partition as a RAID1 as the wiki suggests, and I set the RAID md0 to ext4, bootable, and mounted to /boot, I get an error during the install having to do with GRUB trying to install to /dev/sda and the other disks, whereas it should be installing to md0.

I believe this is a bug in the installer, and so far, I don't know how I can install using a software Raid5. If I am putting in the wrong options, I'm not sure how to configure the installer to do what I need it to do.
Regardless, the installer should be much easier - it should be guiding me through installing a software Raid 5. I'm not trying to do a dual-boot system, just a straight-forward Ubuntu 11.04 server install with a software Raid5. I've attempted to do multiple installs with different configurations to get this to work, but I have yet to be successful. One of these errors will always cause either a red screen error without help on what is going wrong, or will install fully and on the reboot will not allow the system to boot up.

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

Unassigning from ubiquity, which is the livecd installer, since you are talking about a server install.

When reporting bugs, you need to specify exactly what the error message was, not just say you got errors. I'm having trouble following exactly what you did, but what you want to do is:

For each disk, create a 1mb partition and mark it as bios_grub
For each disk, create another partition and mark it as raid
Create a raid array using the raid partitions on each disk
Mark md0 as ext4 and use it for /

[Ed Barta (edbarta)]

Thanks for the quick response Philip. I have tried what you suggested here, and Ubuntu failed to install. I will give you more detailed info once I re-try.
I have used the 1mb partition and marked it as bios_grub, and was unable to get Ubuntu to load after the install. I have also tried to use all the 1mb partitions across the 3 drives in a software RAID1 and mount it to /boot, but that usually gives me an error during the installer step when it tries to install GRUB.

I will re-try designating the 1mb partition to bios_grub and report back the exact error.

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

On 5/27/2011 2:24 PM, Ed Barta wrote:
> I have also tried to use all the 1mb partitions across the 3 drives
> in a software RAID1 and mount it to /boot, but that usually gives me
> an error during the installer step when it tries to install GRUB.

Huh? bios_grub and raid are mutually exclusive partition types; you can
not specify them both. Also you can not set a mount point for the
bios_grub partition.

[Ed Barta (edbarta)]

I tried it one way using BIOS_GRUB as the partition type for the first partition on all 3 drives. That install didn't work.

I then tried (following this wiki on the Ubuntu site: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SoftwareRAID) using a Raid1 configuration for my partitions and mounting md0 to /boot. That didn't work as well.

It seems like you're suggesting not setting the boot partition as a Raid1 as the wiki states, and just using individual partitions on the drives as the bios_grub. I'll try that first, but as I said, I tried that before and got nowhere.

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

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On 05/27/2011 05:33 PM, Ed Barta wrote:
> It seems like you're suggesting not setting the boot partition as a
> Raid1 as the wiki states, and just using individual partitions on the
> drives as the bios_grub. I'll try that first, but as I said, I tried
> that before and got nowhere.

Correct. If each disk has a bios_grub partition on it, then you should
be able to install grub to all of the disks ( check each disk on the
screen prompting where to install grub to ).

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[Ed Barta (edbarta)]

Installation using the individual bios_grub partitions went through without a hitch, but when I rebooted the machine, the error I get is:

error: no such disk
grub recovery >

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

Please boot the livecd and download and run the script from here, and post the results:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

[Ed Barta (edbarta)]

I had an extra hard drive, so I loaded up Ubuntu 11.04 (not server), and booted from that drive to produce this results.txt from the BASH script. You'll see another harddrive listed outside of the Raid5, and this is the harddrive loaded with Ubuntu. When I installed 11.04 server, I removed this drive from the system, and this hard drive was not hooked up during the 11.04 install.

I only hooked it up now so I don't have to worry about LiveCD.

[Ed Barta (edbarta)]

I'm still stuck on this with over a week of downtime. Can I get any assistance?

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

Hrm... everything looks good there. Can you run cat /proc/mdstat in Ubuntu, and then try to boot from the failing disks again and when you get to the grub recovery prompt, run ls and post the results?

[Ed Barta (edbarta)]

>cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid10]
md127 : active (auto-read-only) raid5 sdb2[1] sda2[0] sdc2[2]
      5855092736 blocks super 1.2 level 5, 512k chunk, algorithm 2 [3/3] [UUU]
        resync=PENDING

unused devices: <none>

>ls
(hd0) (hd0,gpt3) (hd0,gpt2) (hd0,gpt1) (hd1) (hd1,gpt3) (hd1,gpt2) (hd1,gpt1) (hd2) (hd3,gpt3) (hd3,gpt2) (hd3,gpt1)

[Ed Barta (edbarta)]

Sorry, I was hand typing that in. That should have been:

>ls

(hd0) (hd0,gpt3) (hd0,gpt2) (hd0,gpt1) (hd1) (hd1,gpt3) (hd1,gpt2) (hd1,gpt1) (hd2) (hd2,gpt3) (hd2,gpt2) (hd2,gpt1)

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

It seems that grub isn't recognizing the raid array for some reason.

[Ed Barta (edbarta)]

Yeah, I think that's the issue. Should the ls list MD127 as part of the list of devices? How do I get GRUB to do that? Seems like there's a problem with the installer and/or GRUB itself, since I stipulated the RAID in the partition step of the installation.

So, in the meantime, how do I get GRUB to recognize the RAID? Maybe that will lead to what's needed to correct the installer.

[Ed Barta (edbarta)]

This post also lists the problem with mdadm calling the RAID MD127 instead of MD0:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1764861

Sounds like there are a lot of problems with the installer, or the components of the installer getting the settings right for a RAID install.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

11.04 has reached end of life. I don't suppose you are still having issues with a more recent release?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for grub2 (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]