[Bug 1487365] Re: Ubuntu14.04 .3 RAID installation fails on firestone

[Brian Murray]

Hello bugproxy, or anyone else affected,

Accepted partman-prep into trusty-proposed. The package will build now
and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/partman-
prep/27ubuntu1.14.04.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed
repository.

Please help us by testing this new package.  See
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to
enable and use -proposed.  Your feedback will aid us getting this update
out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug,
mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag
from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the
bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to
verification-failed.  In either case, details of your testing will help
us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification .  Thank you in
advance!

** Changed in: partman-prep (Ubuntu Trusty)
       Status: In Progress => Fix Committed

** Tags added: verification-needed

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1487365

Title:
  Ubuntu14.04 .3 RAID installation fails on firestone

Status in debian-installer package in Ubuntu:
  Invalid
Status in grub-installer package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in partman-md package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in partman-prep package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in debian-installer source package in Trusty:
  New
Status in grub-installer source package in Trusty:
  New
Status in partman-md source package in Trusty:
  New
Status in partman-prep source package in Trusty:
  Fix Committed
Status in debian-installer source package in Vivid:
  New
Status in grub-installer source package in Vivid:
  New
Status in partman-md source package in Vivid:
  New
Status in partman-prep source package in Vivid:
  New
Status in debian-installer source package in Wily:
  New
Status in grub-installer source package in Wily:
  New
Status in partman-md source package in Wily:
  New
Status in partman-prep source package in Wily:
  New

Bug description:
  [Impact]
  Users installing on ppc64el with RAID enabled, doing manual or guided partitioning are unable to complete the installation because the multiple passes of partitioning required to apply the initial partitions on disk (PReP partitions and all) and the next set of partitions on RAID or LVM cause the initial PReP flags to be lost.

  [Test case]
  1) Start installation on a ppc64el system with two or more disks.
  2) Use manual partitioning to add a PReP partition on one of the disks. It should have a size of 8MB, at the beginning of the disk. It can be followed by free space or a single partition to be used as space for RAID.
  3) Create a RAID volume, using RAID1 (2 partitions, 0 spaces), add the RAID partition previously created and the free space from another disk.
  4) End partitioning, confirming everything.

  The installation should complete successfully.

  [Regression potential]
  This is limited to the handling of PReP partitions, so only applies to ppc64el systems. Possible regressions may be failure to allow a valid setup of partitions while preparing the install on ppc64el, or failure of the installation on an invalid (but not immediately detected) partition setup, at the point where grub-installer will try to install the bootloader on the system.

  
  ---

  Problem Description
  =======================
  Installation goes smoothly, until it reaches grub installation, and fails with fatal error there.

  Machine Type = pio-firestone

  ---boot type---
  QEMU direct boot kernel/initrd

  ---Kernel cmdline used to launch install---
  kexec -l /root/vmlinux.venkat -i /root/initrd.gz.venkat
  kexec -e

  == Comment: # - Venkat R. B <venkatb3 at in.ibm.com> - 2015-08-14 08:08:41 ==
  I am trying to install Ubuntu14.04 on the firestone machine on a RAID1 array, configured with software raid.
  Installation goes on smoothly till its reaches grub loader and fails. Below I have pasted the error.

               ?? [!!] Install the GRUB boot loader on a hard disk ??
    ????????????                                                    ? ?????????
    ?          ?        Unable to install GRUB in /dev/md0p1        ?         ?
    ?          ? Executing 'grub-install /dev/md0p1' failed.        ?         ?
    ?          ?                                                    ?         ?
    ? Running "? This is a fatal error.                             ?         ?
    ?          ?                                                    ?         ?
    ????????????     <Go Back>                       <Continue>     ? ?????????
               ?                                                    ?
               ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????

  == Comment: # - Mauricio Faria De Oliveira <mauricfo at br.ibm.com> - 2015-08-20 09:31:11 ==
  grub-installer pieces from syslog

  Aug 19 11:07:43 grub-installer: info: Installing grub on '/dev/md0p1'
  Aug 19 11:07:43 grub-installer: info: grub-install does not support --no-floppy
  Aug 19 11:07:43 grub-installer: info: Running chroot /target grub-install  --force "/dev/md0p1"
  Aug 19 11:07:43 grub-installer: Installing for powerpc-ieee1275 platform.
  Aug 19 11:08:01 grub-installer: grub-install: error: failed to copy Grub to the PReP partition.
  Aug 19 11:08:01 grub-installer: error: Running 'grub-install  --force "/dev/md0p1"' failed.

  and the "error:" message 'failed to copy Grub to the PReP partition.'
  is not generated by the grub-installer script itself [1], so probably
  coming down from grub2.

  I'd suggest to either involve our grub2 guy (not sure if available),
  or mirroring to Canonical.

  [1] http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-branches/ubuntu/trusty/grub-
  installer/trusty-updates/view/head:/grub-installer

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