Ubuntu 9.10 fails to assign uuid for root partition during boot

[Alok Kataria]

Binary package hint: initramfs-tools

We did a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.10 beta1 inside a VM on VMware, and while running boot halt tests, i.e. /etc/rc.local calls init 6, after a few successful reboots the Ubuntu 9.10 guest enters a busybox initramfs shell.

Doing a blkid, doesn't show the root device's uuid string.
Though the root device (sda1 in this case) is detected and accessible at that stage. I disabled uuid for grub (GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID) so that grub doesn't use uuid's while mounting the root partition and that seems to workaround the problem.

Please note that adding "rootdelay=" doesn't help since the SCSI device is already detected the problem is with creating the uuid's.
I don't know which init script takes care of creating the symlinks for the uuid files, but whatever that script is doesn't seem to be called everytime at boot.

Do let me know if you need any more info. Thanks.

Alok

[Miguel Ángel Ferrer (informatica-maferrer)]

The udevd creates the symlinks at /dev/disk/by-uuid when it encounters blkid at $PATH

I found the bug is from initramfs-tools (0.92j)
at end of /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/udev it does:
copy_exec /sbin/blkid /lib/modules

and it should do:
copy_exec /sbin/blkid /sbin

Once it's corrected remember to:
update-initramfs -u

Good luck
__________
M.Á.Ferrer

[maximilian attems (maks-debian)]

An old bug on the udev boot hook, most presumably fixed in between.