SAS disks and setup_harddisks.

[James Bromberger]

Hello world,

I am trying to get some SAS-based blades configured using FAI. I've been 
happily using FAI with bog-standard SCSI on Dell kit for a few years 
now. However, I am now looking at using some HP BL460c Blades, which 
have the small form factor SAS disks on them (73GB, 10K RPM). I am 
booting the 2.6.18-fai-kernels for the PXE booted kernel, have an etch 
chroot being successfully mounted via NFS, and am using fai 3.1.7.

I am hitting a problem I saw referenced earlier here with:
	/dev/cciss/c0d0 disks:
	setup_harddisks version 0.41fai
	Probing disks: /dev/cciss/c0d0
	Disks found:Disk /dev/cciss/c0d0: cannot get geometry
	Illegal division by zero at /usr/sbin/setup_harddisks line 298.
	setup_harddisks version 0.41fai
	Probing disks: /dev/cciss/c0d0
	Disks found:setup_harddisks did not create 
/var/log/fai/current/disk_var.sh file.


Earlier reference on fai mailing list:
http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-fai@rrz.uni-koeln.de/msg04406.html


Deep within setup_harddisks is a line that works out the geometry of the 
disk for formatting
	$result = `sh -c "LC_ALL=C sfdisk -g -q $devdisklist"`;



Using cfdisk and fdisk I can see the geometry of the disk interactively. 
Looking at the manual page for sfdisk shows the following information 
for the flags "-g" and "-G":

-g or --show-geometry
	List the kernel’s idea of the geometry of the indicated disk(s).

-G or --show-pt-geometry
	List the geometry of the indicated disks guessed by looking at
	the partition table.


And behold, using "sfdisk -G /dev/cciss/c0d0" does give a geometry:
# sfdisk -G /dev/cciss/c0d0
/dev/cciss/c0d0: 8920 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track

So I updated the setup_harddisk in my NFS root to use the "-G" flag 
(capital) to try and get the geometry read, but it seems that the 
generated partitioning scheme cannot be applied by sfdisk to the SAS 
disk. Here's what I get:


	setup_harddisks version 0.41fai
	Probing disks: /dev/cciss/c0d0
	Disks found: cciss/c0d0

	Using config file: /fai/disk_config/SAS-VIBRANT-1DISK-WEB
	Creating partition table: LC_ALL=C sfdisk -q /dev/cciss/c0d0 < 
/var/log/fai/current/partition.cciss_c0d0
	Disk /dev/cciss/c0d0: cannot get geometry
	Warning: The partition table looks like it was made
	 for C/H/S=*/255/63 (instead of 0/0/0).
	For this listing I'll assume that geometry.

	sfdisk: bad input

	setup_harddisks version 0.41fai
	Probing disks: /dev/cciss/c0d0
	Disks found: cciss/c0d0

	Using config file: /fai/disk_config/SAS-VIBRANT-1DISK-WEB
	Creating partition table: LC_ALL=C sfdisk -q /dev/cciss/c0d0 < 
/var/log/fai/current/partition.cciss_c0d0
	setup_harddisks did not create /var/log/fai/current/disk_var.sh file



	Examining the partition.cciss_c0d0 file:
	# partition table of device: /dev/cciss/c0d0
	unit: sectors

	/dev/cciss/c0d0p1: start= 63, size= 8193087, Id= 83, bootable
	/dev/cciss/c0d0p2: start= 8193150, size= 135106650, Id= 5
	/dev/cciss/c0d0p3: start= 0, size= 0, Id= 0
	/dev/cciss/c0d0p4: start= 0, size= 0, Id= 0
	/dev/cciss/c0d0p5: start= 8193213, size= 2795247, Id= 82
	/dev/cciss/c0d0p6: start= 10988523, size= 4851567, Id= 83
	/dev/cciss/c0d0p7: start= 15840153, size= 8193087, Id= 83
	/dev/cciss/c0d0p8: start= 24033303, size= 57014622, Id= 83
	/dev/cciss/c0d0p9: start= 81047988, size= 62251812, Id= 83



So, in summary, sfdisk seems broken for SAS disks. Can anyone suggest a 
work around I can use with FAI?


Thanks,


James 
 
This email is intended for the exclusive use by the person(s) mentioned as recipient(s). This email and its attachments, if any, contain confidential information and/or may contain information protected by intellectual property rights or others rights. This email does not constitute any commitment from Vibrant Media or its subsidiaries except when expressly agreed in a written agreement between the intended recipient and Vibrant Media or its subsidiaries. If you receive this email by mistake, please notify the sender and delete this email immediately from your system and destroy all copies of it. You may not, directly or indirectly, use, disclose, distribute, print or copy this email or any part of it if you are not the intended recipient.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: james.bromberger.vcf
Type: text/x-vcard
Size: 522 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.uni-koeln.de/pipermail/linux-fai/attachments/20070307/d0f4a972/attachment.vcf