[Bug 1065281] Re: Installer crashed when trying to partition 4k/4k sector hard disks

[Colin Watson]

This is probably a bit better, since qemu doesn't like booting over
emulated SCSI:

  qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -monitor stdio -m 1024 -bios
/usr/share/ovmf/OVMF.fd -cdrom raring-mini-amd64.iso -global ide-
drive.physical_block_size=4096 -global ide-drive.logical_block_size=4096
-drive file=t.img,if=ide,index=0,media=disk

So.  I can certainly see major bugs in partman-base; it assumes 512-byte
sectors throughout.  I've changed that to use the device's logical
sector size, and uploaded partman-base 163ubuntu2 to raring.  (Best test
using a server image; desktop won't get this until the next ubiquity
upload.)  This certainly makes the partitioner behave more reasonably in
my qemu-based tests.

However, I still haven't been able to get the resulting system to boot.
This could be because qemu/OVMF are weird about booting between them
(which they are), or it could be something to do with GRUB not
understanding non-512-byte logical sectors entirely correctly, or it
could be something else.  If somebody's in a position to quickly confirm
the behaviour of tomorrow's daily build on real hardware, that would be
great.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1065281

Title:
  Installer crashed when trying to partition 4k/4k sector hard disks

Status in The Dell PowerEdge project:
  In Progress
Status in OEM Priority Project:
  Fix Committed
Status in OEM Priority Project precise series:
  In Progress
Status in OEM Priority Project quantal series:
  In Progress
Status in OEM Priority Project raring series:
  Fix Released
Status in Release Notes for Ubuntu:
  Invalid
Status in Release Notes for Ubuntu quantal series:
  Triaged
Status in “dosfstools” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in “efibootmgr” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in “partman-base” package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in “partman-basicfilesystems” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in “partman-efi” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in “dosfstools” source package in Precise:
  Fix Committed
Status in “efibootmgr” source package in Precise:
  Triaged
Status in “partman-base” source package in Precise:
  Triaged
Status in “partman-basicfilesystems” source package in Precise:
  Fix Committed
Status in “partman-efi” source package in Precise:
  Fix Committed
Status in “dosfstools” source package in Quantal:
  Fix Committed
Status in “efibootmgr” source package in Quantal:
  Triaged
Status in “partman-base” source package in Quantal:
  Triaged
Status in “partman-basicfilesystems” source package in Quantal:
  Fix Committed
Status in “partman-efi” source package in Quantal:
  Fix Committed

Bug description:
  partman_server crashes on Ubuntu 12.10 server for amd64 when trying to
  partition an Advanced Format (4k / 4k sector) hard disk.

  Disks that utilize 4k sectors with 512 emulation work fine.  The
  installer has no problems with those.

  Steps to Reproduce:
  1) Begin the installation in EFI mode. 
  2) At the disk partitioning stage, select "Guided use Entire Disk" or "Manual"
  3) Review and accept the proposed partitioning scheme and write changes to disk. 

  Actual Results:
  The system will attempt to create a the EFIboot partition.  At this stage the installer appears to hang.   Pressing Ctrl+AltF4 reveals that parted_server has crashed with the following message:

  parted_server[13865]: segfault at 22fa000 ip 00007fa6eb74bee7 sp
  00007fffec3ab500 error 4 in libparted.so.0.0.1[7fa6eb735000+64000]

  Expected results:
  Installation should carry on without a crash.

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