installer cannot start 'fakeraid' devices that need dm-mirror or dm-raid modules

[Jason McMullan]

This is known to affect the Ubuntu Server Daily Build of Ubuntu 12.04, as of March 21, 2012.

The kernel modules for 'dm-mirror' and 'dm-raid' are missing from the Ubuntu Server x86_64 CDROM's initrd, which prevent the installer's dmraid setup from starting (for example NVidia and Silicon Image ATA fakeraid controllers that are set up for mirrored operation).

No error is reported to user that the dmraid was not properly initialized - it silently fails, and presents the individual drives of the mirror for partitioning.

Compounding this issue, for upgrades of systems that are running lvm2 on top of dmraid mirrors, the lvm2 'vgchange -a y' *does* occur, which then leads the installer to perform the installation on only half of the drives in the raid set (assuming that they are in the LVM volume groups).

Again, no error or warning is presented to the user.

Curiously, at least on the Silicon Image software raid, this does not break the raid set and start a rebuild.

If dmraid is later installed on the system, the newly generated system's initrd will allow the raid to come up in a very strange, broken manner that rapidly leads to filesystem corruption, and an unusable installation.

Also: bug data attached to this report is from another system, that does not have this issue (no dmraid). Also, is 'debian-installer' the correct package to use when reporting problems with the ISO installer and initrd?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: debian-installer (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-19.31-generic 3.2.12
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-19-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 1.94.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Mar 21 22:36:02 2012
MachineType: LENOVO 64608VU
MemoryUsage:
 total used free shared buffers cached
 Mem: 2017484 1825100 192384 0 61088 834044
 -/+ buffers/cache: 929968 1087516
 Swap: 2097148 0 2097148
PccardctlIdent:
 Socket 0:
   no product info available
PccardctlStatus:
 Socket 0:
   no card
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.2.0-19-generic root=/dev/mapper/volume-ubuntu ro rootdelay=10 processor.ignore_ppc=1
SourcePackage: debian-installer
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-01-26 (55 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 04/25/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: 7LETB7WW (2.17 )
dmi.board.name: 64608VU
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: Not Available
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: Not Available
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvr7LETB7WW(2.17):bd04/25/2008:svnLENOVO:pn64608VU:pvrThinkPadT61p:rvnLENOVO:rn64608VU:rvrNotAvailable:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
dmi.product.name: 64608VU
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad T61p
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO

[Denis Kozlov (dezlov)]

I am also experiencing this issue while trying to install Ubuntu 12.04 on Intel DH67BL motherboard with RAID-1 configuration.

I have tried several different versions and builds of Ubuntu 12.04 and they all suffer from this issue:
ubuntu-12.04-alpha2-server-amd64.iso
ubuntu-12.04-beta1-server-amd64.iso
precise-server-amd64.iso @ 2012-03-20
precise-server-amd64.iso @ 2012-03-22

In all cases installer does not report any problems, but syslog contains the following:
disk-detect: ERROR: device-mapper: target type "mirror" is not in the kernel

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Denis Kozlov (dezlov)]

The same problem also occurs with Ubuntu 11.10 Server 64-bit, confirmed on a physical machine.

Here is a related bug reported:
Intel software raid disks not detected by alternate installer if in RAID1
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/debian-installer/+bug/914536

[Gustavo (paolo-nino)]

I try to install precise-alternate-amd64 daily 01 Apr 2012 and I have the same problem.
My computer have an Asus Crossair V formula motherboard.
I have 4 hdd installed.
Two hdd are set as mirror and two as stripe.
During installation the stripe hdd set seems to be recognise but not the mirror hdd set.
Anyway if I set partitions on the recognised mirror hdd set after I get partitioning error during set-up and installation fall back to the partitioning set-up.
I open a shell and type the command:
dmrayd -ay

I get the error message by dmraid:
'ERROR: device-mapper type "mirror" is not in the kernel'

If I go back to the installation and I have again only stripe hdd set recognised.
This time I can go on with stripe hhd set formatting and the installation process go on.
Any idea how to make both mirror and stripe hdd set recognised and formatted?

[Denis Kozlov (dezlov)]

@Gustavo
I don't think there is an easy way, the kernel seems to be missing the required "mirror" module. I've heard that the desktop version might have this module built-in, but cannot confirm this (it might be a myth).

I have resorted to a software raid instead, as I couldn't get the controller raid (faik raid) to be recognized by Ubuntu Server edition.

[Gunni (fgunni)]

This problem occurs just with simple software raid as well if kernel modules differ from the ones in the mirror archives, because downloading some module fails, and after that installation fails exactly as described.
precise-beta2 does not work anymore.
precise-daily from today works today, but i think will fail if kernel version changes.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I believe this was fixed by the kernel team in bug 919281. It should be fixed in current daily builds.