Ubuntu 18.04 install not reading block storage properly

[Laz Peterson]

We recently received Supermicro servers with Avago 3108 chipset, and 2x Seagate 4K SAS drives in a hardware RAID1 configuration.

All other operating systems (including Ubuntu 16.04) report this virtual drive properly.

Ubuntu 18.04 shows it as if it were using 512 byte sectors, instead of the 4K sectors that are actually there.

Instead of having ~1TB drive, it shows as ~8TB and is unable to install no matter what I do.

Going to shell during install and running fdisk shows all of the right information and drive/sector sizes.

I am able to install 16.04 and then upgrade to 18.04, but that is not ideal.

Please let me know what other information I can get, or how I can get it for you.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1858161/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Laz Peterson (laz-v)]

I really don't know how to select the appropriate package, but hdparm does seem to be confused as to the physical/logical sector size. I don't know what the installer uses to get the wrong values though.

[Laz Peterson (laz-v)]

This screenshot shows what the Ubuntu 18.04.3 installer is showing when allowing me to select the installation target. The correct value should be ~1TB, not ~8TB.

[Laz Peterson (laz-v)]

This screenshot shows output from hdparm, fdisk and the values in /sys/block/sda/queue/physical_block_size and logical_block_size.

[Laz Peterson (laz-v)]

I should also mention that this server is running on an AMD EPYC Rome platform, and it seems that the kernel version used during install is a bit older than it should be to support this.

Any thoughts on where the Ubuntu installation is getting the wrong physical/logical size?

[Laz Peterson (laz-v)]

FYI - both Ubuntu 16.04 and 20.20 daily build show the correct disk size. See attached from Focal Fossa.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Are you using the server or desktop installation media?

[Laz Peterson (laz-v)]

Hello Brian, my apologies for that ... we are installing using the 18.04.3 server media.