Discuss August 2014

discuss@lists.centos.org

173 participants
168 discussions

Re: [CentOS] Hanging SSH in CentOS 7 and Systemd
by Oliver Schad 30 Aug '14

30 Aug '14

Reindl Harald <h.reindl(a)thelounge.net> wrote: > Am 30.08.2014 um 01:40 schrieb Oliver Schad: > >> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=626477 > > > > Seems back again. I just wondering how such easy things can be so > > hard so solve. > > Oh no - don't tell me that update below fucks it up again > and not systemd this time - /etc/rc.d/init.d/network is > part of "initscripts" and i have not rebooted the machine > after the update because nothing loaded changed Don't know what you mean. I've already found the ticket above before I've posted here. I tried to fix it with the change of /usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-user-sessions.service or /usr/lib/systemd/system/sshd.service with dependencies to systemd-networkd.service and network.target but it changes nothing (obvious) in the behaviour. Best Regards Oli

1 1

Re: [CentOS] Hanging SSH in CentOS 7 and Systemd
by Oliver Schad 29 Aug '14

29 Aug '14

Hi Harald, On Sat, 30 Aug 2014 00:45:02 +0200 Reindl Harald <h.reindl(a)thelounge.net> wrote: > Am 30.08.2014 um 00:26 schrieb Oliver Schad: > > I have a problem with my SSH sessions if I reboot with CentOS 7: my > > SSH sessions seems terminated after the network is already shutdown. > > > > How to fix that with Systemd? > > what have you done on your system? > how is your network started (NM, netwoerk.service) Through network.service Because I had trouble with the NetworkManager I've switched back to "normal" network management. > that was fixed long before RHEL7 GA even if it > took many months after first appear in Fedora 20 > > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=626477 Seems back again. I just wondering how such easy things can be so hard so solve. Best Regards Oli

1 0

Hanging SSH in CentOS 7 and Systemd
by Oliver Schad 29 Aug '14

29 Aug '14

Hi all, I have a problem with my SSH sessions if I reboot with CentOS 7: my SSH sessions seems terminated after the network is already shutdown. How to fix that with Systemd? Thank you in advance and best regards Oli

1 0

Inconsistent printing on Centos 7
by Frank Cox 29 Aug '14

29 Aug '14

I have ongoing issues with my Xerox Phaser 2550 printer under Centos 7. It always worked without any issues on Centos 6 before I upgraded to Centos 7. The problem manifests itself by regularly (but not every time) printing page after page of garbage instead of the document that I wanted to print out. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The same document might print fine now but then I get pages of garbage the next time I print. I have it set up as a shared printer on my network; the other computers on my network are all Centos 6. Printing from another computer on my network sometimes works but more often prints pages of garbage. When experimenting with this last night printing test pages from system-config-printer on a Centos 6 machine to the printer on this Centos 7 machine, I sometimes got a "Connecting to printer" message and then nothing printed until I restarted cups on the Centos 6 computer. This didn't happen every time; once again sometimes I got a test page printed, sometimes I got pages of garbage, sometimes I got the "connecting to printer" message and had to restart cups on the Centos 6 computer. Having become tired of this, I disconnected the printer from my Centos 7 machine and connected it to one of the Centos 6 machines and it worked without error when printing from that computer directly and when printing to it from another Centos 6 machine. The printer also showed up by magic as a discovered printer on the other Centos 6 machine, but didn't show up on the Centos 7 machine until I loaded system-config-printer on Centos 7, "new", and told it to search for network printers on the Centos 6 machine. Therefore, automatic printer discovery doesn't seem to work on this Centos 7 machine either. Now that the printer is connected to a Centos 6 machine again it appears to work fine when talking to other Centos 6 machines on the network and the printer is automatically discovered. After searching for the network printer from the Centos 7 machine and setting it up using the default (just hitting ok after it found the printer), my first attempt at printing a test page gave me a sheet that says this: #PDF-BANNER Template default-testpage.pdf Show printer-name printer-info printer-location printer-make-and-model printer-d river-name printer-driver-version paper-size imageable-area job-id options time- at-creation time-at-processing This obviously wasn't what I expected to see, so I ran system-config-printer on the Centos 7 machine again and changed the printer driver for that printer to Xerox Phaser 3150, the same as the setting on the Centos 6 machine that the printer is now connected to. Now the test page prints fine, but I get two sheets out of the printer every time I print the test page. The first one says "**** Warning: glyf overlaps cmap, truncating." Then the test page prints as expected. After printing the test page I get a printer error icon (printer with a red dot and white line on it) in the notification area on my panel. Clicking on that icon does nothing and hovering over it does nothing either but the only way it goes away is if I log out and log back in. In conclusion, the printing really doesn't work properly from this Centos 7 machine, regardless of whether the printer is directly connected or if I'm printing over the network. Direct connecting the printer causes it to print pages of garbage some of the time, automatic remote printer discovery doesn't work, and manually setting up up to print to the remote printer still generates an error of some kind but does appear to print. I can find nothing in /var/log/cups that tells me anything useful. /var/log/cups/error_log isn't updated when I print to the remote printer, even though the printer error icon shows up on my panel. page_log just tells me that it printed a page. All of this stuff works perfectly and automatically from Centos 6 (both printing to the local printer on a Centos 6 machine and printing over the network from a Centos 6 machine to another Centos 6 machine). -- MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Real D 3D Digital Cinema ~ www.melvilletheatre.com

3 5

Re: [CentOS] CentOS Digest, Vol 115, Issue 21
by Bill Gee 29 Aug '14

29 Aug '14

On Thursday, August 21, 2014 12:00:03 centos-request(a)centos.org wrote: > Re: [CentOS] SELinux vs. logwatch and virsh > From: Daniel J Walsh <dwalsh(a)redhat.com> > To: CentOS mailing list <centos(a)centos.org> > > On 08/18/2014 02:13 PM, Bill Gee wrote: > > Hi Dan - > > > > "ausearch -m avc -ts recent" produces no output. If I run it as "ausearch > > -f virsh" then it produces output similar to this. Each day's run of > > logwatch produces three of these audit log entries. The a1 and a2 values > > are different for each entry, but everything else is the same. > > > > =============== > > time->Mon Aug 18 03:21:03 2014 > > type=SYSCALL msg=audit(1408350063.257:7492): arch=c000003e syscall=21 > > success=no exit=-13 a0=11ee230 a1=4 a2=7fff722837b0 a3=7fff72283640 > > items=0 ppid=2815 pid=2816 auid=0 uid=0 gid=0 euid=0 suid=0 fsuid=0 > > egid=0 sgid=0 fsgid=0 tty=(none) ses=981 comm="bash" exe="/usr/bin/bash" > > subj=system_u:system_r:logwatch_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 key=(null) > > type=AVC msg=audit(1408350063.257:7492): avc: denied { read } > > for pid=2816 comm="bash" name="virsh" dev="dm-0" ino=135911290 > > scontext=system_u:system_r:logwatch_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 > > tcontext=system_u:object_r:virsh_exec_t:s0 tclass=file > > =============== > > > > I thought about using audit2allow as you suggest. The problem is then I > > don't really know what change is required. What exactly will it > > do? And is there a guarantee that it will work? > > logwatch is executing virsh probably to communicate with libvirt to > rotate logs or something. You can look in /etc/logrotate.d for a script > with virsh to tell you what the command is trying to do. Hi Dan - I know EXACTLY what virsh is being called for. I wrote the script! It has nothing to do with logrotate. I want virsh to tell logwatch what the status is of all virtual machines running on the host. Logwatch will then include that in its daily summary report. SELinux is getting in the way. Regards - Bill Gee

3 11

CentOS-announce Digest, Vol 114, Issue 15
by centos-announce-request＠centos.org 29 Aug '14

29 Aug '14

Send CentOS-announce mailing list submissions to centos-announce(a)centos.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-announce or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to centos-announce-request(a)centos.org You can reach the person managing the list at centos-announce-owner(a)centos.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of CentOS-announce digest..." Today's Topics: 1. CEBA-2014:1099 CentOS 6 net-snmp Update (Johnny Hughes) 2. CEBA-2014:1107 CentOS 6 ksh Update (Johnny Hughes) 3. CEEA-2014:1105 CentOS 6 libvpx Update (Johnny Hughes) 4. CEBA-2014:1108 CentOS 6 sysstat Update (Johnny Hughes) 5. CEEA-2014:1105 CentOS 6 gstreamer-plugins-bad-free Update (Johnny Hughes) 6. CEBA-2014:1106 CentOS 7 finger FASTTRACK BugFix Update (Johnny Hughes) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 19:49:10 +0000 From: Johnny Hughes <johnny(a)centos.org> Subject: [CentOS-announce] CEBA-2014:1099 CentOS 6 net-snmp Update To: centos-announce(a)centos.org Message-ID: <20140826194910.GA62421(a)n04.lon1.karan.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii CentOS Errata and Bugfix Advisory 2014:1099 Upstream details at : https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2014-1099.html The following updated files have been uploaded and are currently syncing to the mirrors: ( sha256sum Filename ) i386: a4f6c5c76eed2de244cb73747f0547b8626fd097b0ad1047fabbf5b9d4979d05 net-snmp-5.5-49.el6_5.2.i686.rpm f607687636fa57b26c18aa4a136ac8741e012ace91eb1e6b9d0110b36b995b7c net-snmp-devel-5.5-49.el6_5.2.i686.rpm 2ba9e45c89131b1cb8f2ac885d540b8bdb93e8a27e81e774db2e5120829259f4 net-snmp-libs-5.5-49.el6_5.2.i686.rpm 82c53d59aa40ed26716208264a76d09ba6616af713083a3475113b41d5e2ce7d net-snmp-perl-5.5-49.el6_5.2.i686.rpm 53501b71b5bcd4274dd79f6c0c2cff87715a6aca2dcd5d42af0d2d72af5ea51c net-snmp-python-5.5-49.el6_5.2.i686.rpm de810851a6b37187c5999835bd5b5041edd36779065269a93b4380343e261cac net-snmp-utils-5.5-49.el6_5.2.i686.rpm x86_64: cb13f37a30242bb859c3b546a7c25cb6591e061fb91632cd7526b17892109707 net-snmp-5.5-49.el6_5.2.x86_64.rpm f607687636fa57b26c18aa4a136ac8741e012ace91eb1e6b9d0110b36b995b7c net-snmp-devel-5.5-49.el6_5.2.i686.rpm 65539396a7f2a2fdde1383ba6dc26f0458920e6340696b7498587b303044940f net-snmp-devel-5.5-49.el6_5.2.x86_64.rpm 2ba9e45c89131b1cb8f2ac885d540b8bdb93e8a27e81e774db2e5120829259f4 net-snmp-libs-5.5-49.el6_5.2.i686.rpm dbb738c2dfc9ef531e2006e0c8743baed127516609ccbc72cc75cb767f9cf28d net-snmp-libs-5.5-49.el6_5.2.x86_64.rpm aafa97a8d07658518584f679d9e5a1d0518c4e52fd8aba750570957089e7c53b net-snmp-perl-5.5-49.el6_5.2.x86_64.rpm ce64cad97746e58b62f9e3330d726f98ba417e788578d8fc1830126e1bcd26c2 net-snmp-python-5.5-49.el6_5.2.x86_64.rpm 551bb04ca328b33bb19df0600bb5c872dda3e11e51cb381982dadacc2f8f48d1 net-snmp-utils-5.5-49.el6_5.2.x86_64.rpm Source: 6203efadaf8e55e70475066caf7cc943b31bc93ed1901bec45d314d6bc5ab2af net-snmp-5.5-49.el6_5.2.src.rpm -- Johnny Hughes CentOS Project { http://www.centos.org/ } irc: hughesjr, #centos(a)irc.freenode.net ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 09:28:35 +0000 From: Johnny Hughes <johnny(a)centos.org> Subject: [CentOS-announce] CEBA-2014:1107 CentOS 6 ksh Update To: centos-announce(a)centos.org Message-ID: <20140829092835.GA6045(a)n04.lon1.karan.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii CentOS Errata and Bugfix Advisory 2014:1107 Upstream details at : https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2014-1107.html The following updated files have been uploaded and are currently syncing to the mirrors: ( sha256sum Filename ) i386: c79b8b021a5b128c80d7c8f7ede7dcfa87a5b0179a6db2a0abe3b498ff4cc495 ksh-20120801-10.el6_5.9.i686.rpm x86_64: f65694c206d2826e51d85aae5ced338404fefeca0c4bf702eabb599daae687d2 ksh-20120801-10.el6_5.9.x86_64.rpm Source: 0a530b48d58242832dac2d1a3015afa902b649ce2be39106d2cd670e26db6194 ksh-20120801-10.el6_5.9.src.rpm -- Johnny Hughes CentOS Project { http://www.centos.org/ } irc: hughesjr, #centos(a)irc.freenode.net ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 09:29:25 +0000 From: Johnny Hughes <johnny(a)centos.org> Subject: [CentOS-announce] CEEA-2014:1105 CentOS 6 libvpx Update To: centos-announce(a)centos.org Message-ID: <20140829092925.GA6300(a)n04.lon1.karan.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii CentOS Errata and Enhancement Advisory 2014:1105 Upstream details at : https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2014-1105.html The following updated files have been uploaded and are currently syncing to the mirrors: ( sha256sum Filename ) i386: 690d3193f29c39a7846e6fba1a32efb8346944afec046f50ed09e8b7bb8202e3 libvpx-1.3.0-5.el6_5.i686.rpm 6b3c18b06e33463bd816cf09390c6e0091ac84f05c17131195d875d4ce10635e libvpx-devel-1.3.0-5.el6_5.i686.rpm 527e5b57223aab65f1867d151adb0fdd3cf82cb34004b01c7ca4e0e073190259 libvpx-utils-1.3.0-5.el6_5.i686.rpm x86_64: 690d3193f29c39a7846e6fba1a32efb8346944afec046f50ed09e8b7bb8202e3 libvpx-1.3.0-5.el6_5.i686.rpm 6c448d51bbd530ea76393458da6c38e6fbcf816e0b1693788ad2c121fd77decc libvpx-1.3.0-5.el6_5.x86_64.rpm 6b3c18b06e33463bd816cf09390c6e0091ac84f05c17131195d875d4ce10635e libvpx-devel-1.3.0-5.el6_5.i686.rpm 3b9008731ecccb80ddffbed18348e65e4d50a71cda04d9e575a254dd9c1678f6 libvpx-devel-1.3.0-5.el6_5.x86_64.rpm ea6c86f1bf275e6f456d0d9da274657895146cd39192c8bcf39da5588db9a1d3 libvpx-utils-1.3.0-5.el6_5.x86_64.rpm Source: 153005d1cc62614f2b922964928279643c1f959f3ed266a77a55d6f4db711b57 libvpx-1.3.0-5.el6_5.src.rpm -- Johnny Hughes CentOS Project { http://www.centos.org/ } irc: hughesjr, #centos(a)irc.freenode.net ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 09:30:28 +0000 From: Johnny Hughes <johnny(a)centos.org> Subject: [CentOS-announce] CEBA-2014:1108 CentOS 6 sysstat Update To: centos-announce(a)centos.org Message-ID: <20140829093028.GA6527(a)n04.lon1.karan.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii CentOS Errata and Bugfix Advisory 2014:1108 Upstream details at : https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2014-1108.html The following updated files have been uploaded and are currently syncing to the mirrors: ( sha256sum Filename ) i386: 6dbc6c61498ad72eb1bc3518f2cd7475c733137496e126d2307365c789a529a4 sysstat-9.0.4-22.el6_5.1.i686.rpm x86_64: ae89d849875bac15826169e070b5e449df701f24d679297a63c8e89fb6fc1fd9 sysstat-9.0.4-22.el6_5.1.x86_64.rpm Source: 547aef306e20f53698ae48620b27a519690cf2e65e8f01f9e0719b216aca44c2 sysstat-9.0.4-22.el6_5.1.src.rpm -- Johnny Hughes CentOS Project { http://www.centos.org/ } irc: hughesjr, #centos(a)irc.freenode.net ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 09:33:50 +0000 From: Johnny Hughes <johnny(a)centos.org> Subject: [CentOS-announce] CEEA-2014:1105 CentOS 6 gstreamer-plugins-bad-free Update To: centos-announce(a)centos.org Message-ID: <20140829093350.GA6858(a)n04.lon1.karan.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii CentOS Errata and Enhancement Advisory 2014:1105 Upstream details at : https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2014-1105.html The following updated files have been uploaded and are currently syncing to the mirrors: ( sha256sum Filename ) i386: 8350f4e81bfce7fdd537f4d23066564e983f427600b5858d03487674d6ea67cb gstreamer-plugins-bad-free-0.10.19-3.el6_5.i686.rpm 79e4ecfd24507b439c9d3bef669bfc605ed6a5400dde3f003a597fae80fab9d6 gstreamer-plugins-bad-free-devel-0.10.19-3.el6_5.i686.rpm b8eb2842ddfe48fbd8d556078c1bcbd22a6344dd24773215350e112288ce0850 gstreamer-plugins-bad-free-devel-docs-0.10.19-3.el6_5.i686.rpm a3aa6cddc322c545b7f8b8773e1c96d381296b61c6388c463241ff2c305105f9 gstreamer-plugins-bad-free-extras-0.10.19-3.el6_5.i686.rpm x86_64: 8350f4e81bfce7fdd537f4d23066564e983f427600b5858d03487674d6ea67cb gstreamer-plugins-bad-free-0.10.19-3.el6_5.i686.rpm 7376695d179252040e54ef19493c91686bd4f3c1e3363f18000387e4d9566132 gstreamer-plugins-bad-free-0.10.19-3.el6_5.x86_64.rpm 79e4ecfd24507b439c9d3bef669bfc605ed6a5400dde3f003a597fae80fab9d6 gstreamer-plugins-bad-free-devel-0.10.19-3.el6_5.i686.rpm da1e7770dd33424f4b98b9bbe22bf1fe65062f1cacc7fbc8dd781fbf4c46c4f9 gstreamer-plugins-bad-free-devel-0.10.19-3.el6_5.x86_64.rpm 08e5b611b678616aa153942e28ec59d8ef7e643c492f5a5b4de31523522c7a53 gstreamer-plugins-bad-free-devel-docs-0.10.19-3.el6_5.x86_64.rpm a3aa6cddc322c545b7f8b8773e1c96d381296b61c6388c463241ff2c305105f9 gstreamer-plugins-bad-free-extras-0.10.19-3.el6_5.i686.rpm 1737053c9639b5656a7764777bb02080cafb0edf82559783ec95b18bd6464c06 gstreamer-plugins-bad-free-extras-0.10.19-3.el6_5.x86_64.rpm Source: 7f98103f8649ba203ad41ed21c6b77fe416816d9e960365737612ec82c149c90 gstreamer-plugins-bad-free-0.10.19-3.el6_5.src.rpm -- Johnny Hughes CentOS Project { http://www.centos.org/ } irc: hughesjr, #centos(a)irc.freenode.net ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 10:14:47 +0000 From: Johnny Hughes <johnny(a)centos.org> Subject: [CentOS-announce] CEBA-2014:1106 CentOS 7 finger FASTTRACK BugFix Update To: centos-announce(a)centos.org Message-ID: <20140829101447.GA39276(a)n04.lon1.karan.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii CentOS Errata and Bugfix Advisory 2014:1106 Upstream details at : https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2014-1106.html The following updated files have been uploaded and are currently syncing to the mirrors: ( sha256sum Filename ) x86_64: b32aedb24e51893cc01216f683387793dcfdafb014af57e2d8eac82ad04bb740 finger-0.17-52.el7.x86_64.rpm aa1c26ebfc6b932ddfaee07264fb4cd2135cfa18fd0964b3c935b1caaa02495b finger-server-0.17-52.el7.x86_64.rpm Source: 5260f9d4e87cc5ad366ac52af185e803cd397273485c033afe74c61a1e4d1979 finger-0.17-52.el7.src.rpm -- Johnny Hughes CentOS Project { http://www.centos.org/ } irc: hughesjr, #centos(a)irc.freenode.net ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ CentOS-announce mailing list CentOS-announce(a)centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-announce End of CentOS-announce Digest, Vol 114, Issue 15 ************************************************

1 0

C7: need authconfig against LDAP
by Mihamina Rakotomandimby 29 Aug '14

29 Aug '14

Hi all, On a C6 box, when I want to enable LDAP authentication, I issue: # yum -y install nss-pam-ldapd pam_ldap nscd # authconfig --enableldap --enableldapauth --enablemkhomedir \ --ldapserver=ldap://ldap-blabla/ \ --ldapbasedn="blabla" \ --enablecache --disablefingerprint \ --kickstart --update All is working fine, the directory structure is fine and compliant. What about C7? As far as I read, - there is a switch to "sssd" - I found 1 link: http://www.certdepot.net/ldap-client-configuration-authconfig/ Is there something in particular I should pay attention for? Note that I have only GUI-less servers. Thank you.

2 2

Random Disk I/O Tests
by Matt 28 Aug '14

28 Aug '14

I have two openvz servers running Centos 6.x both with 32GB of RAM. One is an Intel Xeon E3-1230 quad core with two 4TB 7200 SATA drives in software RAID1. The other is an old HP DL380 dual quad core with 8 750GB 2.5" SATA drives in hardware RAID6. I want to figure out which one has better random I/O performance to host a busy container. The DL380 currently has one failed drive in the RAID6 array until I get down to replace it, will that degrade performance? Is there an easy way to test disk I/O? On a plain Gigabyte file copy the software RAID1 box seems to be twice as fast.

4 3

CentOS 5 takes one second holding each keyboard key until it shows.
by Reinhard Dunkel 28 Aug '14

28 Aug '14

I used CentOS 5 for years. Suddenly, it takes one second holding a keyboard key until it shows on the screen: # uname -a Linux nitrogen 2.6.18-371.11.1.el5PAE #1 SMP Wed Jul 23 15:54:19 EDT 2014 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux # xset -q Keyboard Control: auto repeat: off key click percent: 50 LED mask: 00000000 auto repeat delay: 660 repeat rate: 25 auto repeating keys: 00ffffffdffffbbf fadfffdfffdfe5ef ffffffffffffffff ffffffffffffffff bell percent: 100 bell pitch: 800 bell duration: 100 Pointer Control: acceleration: 20/10 threshold: 2 Screen Saver: prefer blanking: yes allow exposures: yes timeout: 0 cycle: 600 Colors: default colormap: 0x20 BlackPixel: 0 WhitePixel: 16777215 Font Path: unix/:7100,built-ins Bug Mode: compatibility mode is enabled DPMS (Energy Star): Standby: 0 Suspend: 1800 Off: 1800 DPMS is Enabled Monitor is On Font cache: Server does not have the FontCache Extension File paths: Config file: /etc/X11/xorg.conf Modules path: /usr/lib/xorg/modules Log file: /var/log/Xorg.0.log I copied the CentOS 5 /etc/X11/xorg.conf to CentOS 7 (on the same computer) and rebooted - no effect. I copied the CentOS 7 /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-keyboard.conf to CentOS 5 and rebooted - no effect. I tried different CentOS 5 xset settings, I tried an IBM Soft Touch and a Logitech keyboard using different cabeling. What might resolve this new one second delay for each CentOS 5 keyboard key? What might have caused it? ThanX

6 7

Dual boot with Windows 8.1, UEFI
by Andrew Daviel 28 Aug '14

28 Aug '14

(apologies for the length - there are questions at the end...) I've been running Linux for 20 years, and done a lot of dual-boots. I know that's old-school now, but I run Linux 95% of the time yet don't want to lose a Windows system I've paid for - but I've never tried removing it from a system and reinstalling the same licenced copy inside a virtual machine. I bought a new laptop back in April this year, after trying to check online for Linux certification to match what was in the local stores. There's so many models and variants that's almost impossible, but I found various "HP Pavilion 14" in www.ubuntu.com/certification and a couple of "HP EliteBook" in hardware.redhat.com/laptop. So I bought an "HP Pavilion 14-n228ca TouchSmart Notebook", which came with Windows 8.1 installed. So I start off doing what I've done on previous occasions - get into the BIOS, change the boot order, boot a CentOS 6 installation CD as used on my desktop, go into rescue mode and look at the partitions. Normally I'd use fdisk, but that says it doesn't understand GPT and I should use parted. There's 5 partitions, so I use resizefs to shrink the main NTFS data partition, then delete the partition and recreate it shorter at the same start location. Then reboot the CD into install mode, create a Linux partition in the free space, and install CentOS, which adds a choice of "Other" in grub.conf to boot Windows. Then I boot CentOS and finish the install - a couple of glitches; it needs a kernel parameter "iommu=soft" to get the USB mouse to work ("nommu_map_single overflow" messages), and it needs a firmware file rt3290.bin for the RT3290 WiFi chip to work (submitted bug 1133288). Then I try to boot into Windows. From GRUB, I get a screen "windows boot manager" with an error message "file \Boot\BCD - missing or contains errors". The boot sequence is a bit weird compared to what I'm used to - this is my first machine with UEFI. The BIOS has a UEFI boot order and a legacy boot order, which has to be enabled. UEFI takes precedence. With legacy enabled, F9 gives a boot menu with OS boot Manager Boot from EFI file Notebook hard drive Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive "Notebook hard drive" takes me to GRUB. "EFI file" takes me walkabout on a Windows file system with folders like "HP", "Boot", Windows" and what looks like hundreds of locale files - maybe I can boot in Turkish. "OS boot Manager" takes me to an HP/Windows system recovery screen with various options - continue, troubleshoot, turn off. "continue" goes to a splash screen like "attempting to repair" which fails. "troubleshoot" has a command prompt option. That's running Windows cmd.exe in one of the other partitions, mounted as X: In that, I find commands "chkdsk", "diskpart", "bootrec", "bcdedit" etc. To cut an even longer story short, I did something like: X:\ diskpart diskpart> select disk 0 diskpart> select partition 4 (the NTFS system one) diskpart> set id=ebd0a0a2-b9e5-4433-87c0-68b6b72699c7 X:\ bcdedit /set {default} device partition=C: X:\ bcdedit /set {default} osdevice partition=C: X:\ bootrec /rebuildbcd After doing that, the system partition appears as C:, passes chkdsk, and the system boots successfully into Windows. 3 questions: - what should I have done instead to create a dual-boot system on this hardware (the above is ridiculous and took hours of trials and research) - how can I make CentOS boot by default (since there is a valid EFI record for Windows 8, that seems to take preference unless I hit F9 at boot and manually select the disk) - is it possible to make CentOS boot via EFI rather than from the legacy partition boot record ? - how can I make Windows boot from GRUB ? (I tried "bcdedit /export C:\Boot\BCD", but that did not help - or I have the wrong file or syntax) Some documentation refers to a tool in Windows 8 called "EasyBCD", but I can't find it in my system. -- Andrew Daviel, TRIUMF, Canada Tel. +1 (604) 222-7376 (Pacific Time)

3 2

Jump to page:

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

Discuss August 2014