Environment
Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 Service Pack 1
Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 1
Novell ZENworks 10 Configuration Management
Situation
When installing a SLES10 SP1 system from scratch, the partitions
are mounted "by Device ID". An example of the resulting /etc/fstab entries looks
like the following:
Mounting devices by "by Device ID" has the advantage that device names are persistent. However there can be a problem when cloning disks, e.g. by using ZENworks Configuration Management 10 or disk-level copying tools, such as the native Linux dd command, z/VM's DDR, FLASHCOPY, etc. Because the ID is unique, the boot process of the cloned system fails. The error message would look similar to the following:
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-TOSHIBA_MK4019GAXB_23ID4883T-part6 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1The former default was mounting by "Device Name" (example: /dev/sda1, /dev/dasda1).
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-TOSHIBA_MK4019GAXB_23ID4883T-part1 swap swap defaults 0 0
Mounting devices by "by Device ID" has the advantage that device names are persistent. However there can be a problem when cloning disks, e.g. by using ZENworks Configuration Management 10 or disk-level copying tools, such as the native Linux dd command, z/VM's DDR, FLASHCOPY, etc. Because the ID is unique, the boot process of the cloned system fails. The error message would look similar to the following:
Waiting for device /dev/disk/by-id/ata-TOSHIBA_MK4019GAXB_23ID4883T-part6 to appear:
..................................... not found
--exiting to /bin/sh
Resolution
There are two possible ways to solve the problem:
* Perform a new installation of your "Gold Master" system.
Related documentation
* Perform a new installation of your "Gold Master" system.
- Start the SP1 installation, select "New installation".
- When you get to the "Installation Summary" screen, select "Partitioning", then "Base Partition setup on this proposal." For mainframe systems, simply select “Partitioning.”
- In this dialogue, for every partition that is defined (or will be defined), the method of mounting has to be changed the following way:
- Select the partition, select "edit", then "Fstab Options".
- For non-mainframe systems, select "Device name", then twice "Ok".
- For mainframe systems, select “Device Path”, then twice “Ok”.
- Continue with the next partition.
- When done, choose "Finish" and continue with the installation.
- Boot into the system which you want to clone, I.e. your “Gold Master”.
- Call up YaST2 ->System ->Partitioner. For every partition change the mount option to "Device name", as described above.
- For non-mainframe systems:
- Call up YaST2 ->System ->Boot Loader.
- For every boot menu entry change the root device.
- Reboot the system to see if it boots properly. If so, the system should be ready for cloning.
- In you would rather make the above changes manually instead of using YaST, edit the files /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/menu.lst with a text editor of your choice (you have to be root). Replace all entries like root=/dev/disk/by-id/[partition] with root=/dev/Xda[number]. If you are unclear about the existing partitions, call "fdisk -l".
- For mainframe systems, the Boot Loader module isn't shown, although it is functional.
- Type "yast bootloader", or "yast2 bootloader" for the graphical version.
- For every boot menu entry change the root device to match what was put into /etc/fstab by YaST Partitioner.
- Reboot the system to see if it boots properly. If so, the system should be ready for cloning.
- If you would rather make the above changes manually instead of using YaST, edit the files /etc/fstab, and /etc/zipl.conf with a text editor of your choice. You must be root to do this. Replace all entries such as root=/dev/disk/by-id/[partition] with root=/dev/disk/by-path/[partition]. If you are unsure about the existing partitions, look at the directory entries in /dev/disk/by-path via the “ls -l” command.
- If you do make these changes manually, once you have completed editing /etc/fstab and /etc/zipl.conf, you must also manually run mkinitrd, and zipl. Failure to do so is likely to result in an unbootable system.
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