Hello all,
I have 3 Supermicro 1u servers, each with dual 250gb SATA drives.
I have a server with CentOS 5 64bit setup for pxebooting and kickstart installs.
I have a kickstart install file that doesn't specify the disks specifically. It works like a champ, and the operating system installs and completes.
I have a kickstart install file that specifies the disk devices (sda, sdb) pulled and modified from another similiar system. My goal here is configuring software RAID.
Whenever I try to use the file for software raid, she dies with an error: "Specified nonexistant disk sda in clearpart command" ... if I removed the --drives-sda,sdb from the clearpart, it will just fail on the part command for RAID.
Now, I struggled with machine #1 for a long time, then realized that it is probably the onboard raid in the BIOS, which isn't a real RAID. Turned it off, and it appeared to be the solution. I thought I was well on my way. I did the same for machines #2 and #3 which had no installation attempts, and they would not work.
I can take the disks from machine #1, which will run through a reinstall fine, and throw them in machine #2 and *it will install*. So it seems to be an issue with the partition information on the disk.
I tried doing a dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda (bs=1024 count=10000) to try to overwrite any RAID metadata and partition information and what not.
During the install, when I have the error that sda is invalid, I can hit the vty2 (emergency shell) and easily run fdisk /dev/sda and print the partition table. So the device is there, and accessable.
I've tried every incarnation of clearpart commands.
My current kickstart info:
# RAID kickstart # clearpart --linux --drives=sda,sdb # clearpart --all --linux --initlabel clearpart --drives=sda,sdb --all --initlabel # clearpart --all --initlabel --drives=sda,sdb part raid.9 --size=100 --ondrive=sda part raid.10 --size=100 --ondrive=sdb part raid.13 --size=2000 --ondrive=sdb part raid.12 --size=2000 --ondrive=sda part raid.16 --size=100 --grow --ondrive=sdb part raid.15 --size=100 --grow --ondrive=sda raid /boot --fstype ext3 --level=RAID1 --device=md0 raid.9 raid.10 raid swap --fstype swap --level=RAID1 --device=md1 raid.12 raid.13 raid / --fstype ext3 --level=RAID1 --device=md2 raid.15 raid.16
Any advice is appreciated!