Ubuntu natty setup-storage questions

[Michael Tautschnig]

Hi Andreas,

Sorry for the delayed reply.

> 
> Again me with three issues I asked some time ago already...
> 
> a) setup-storage leads to a different partition table than
> setup_harddisks, although the disk_config file only changed in
> syntax.
> 

This is expected as alignment constraints were updated and the entire code has
been rewritten, including the bit that computes partition sizes.
Preserve+always_format are the only way to fully retain an old layout.

> b) I'm currently using two classes NO_SCRATCH (for a standard
> partition layout that all of the FAI clients are using) and SCRATCH
> (to preserve a possibly existing /scratch partition that I created
> by hand earlier on some of the FAI clients, but not on all of them).
> 
>   b 1) How could theses classes NO_SCRATCH and SCRATCH be merged in one
>        single class? Is it possible at all?
> 

When merging these into a single config file, would you also expect that no
scratch partition be created if none exists? Preserve-if-exists is possible, but
don't-create-if-not-there is not possible with current setup-storage. More
details on that below.

[...]
> 
> I'd like to merge these two classes if possible.
> 
> Is there a way to preserve a partition of  unknown size and unknown
> starting point, but only if it does exist already? I'm doing initial
> installs (fai-chboot -IvBk nouveau.modeset=0 fai_client), but still
> would like to preserve /scratch. I think 'preserve_lazy' is doing
> more than just preserving the partition.
> 

What exactly do you mean by "doing more than just preserving the partition"? In
my opinion preserve_lazy is exactly what you want, except for the fact that it
will always create such a partition in those case where it didn't exist before.

> 
> And, secondly, the disk_config file leads to an error:
> 
> root at faisrv:/home/fai/l28/last# more format.log
> Starting setup-storage 1.3
> Using config file: /var/lib/fai/config/disk_config/SCRATCH
> Executing: parted -s /dev/sda unit TiB print
> Executing: parted -s /dev/sda unit B print free
> Executing: parted -s /dev/sda unit chs print free
>     Creating directory "/var/lock/lvm"
>     Finding all volume groups
>   No volume groups found
> Executing: mdadm --examine --scan --verbose -c partitions
> /dev/sda3 will be preserved
> Executing: vgchange -a n
> Executing: parted -s /dev/sda mklabel msdos
> Executing: parted -s /dev/sda mkpart primary "ext3" 32256B 10479006719B
> Executing: parted -s /dev/sda mkpart extended "" 250056737280B 252145958399B
> Command had non-zero exit code
>

[...]

I believe that these problems should already be fixed in 3.4.8 (a bug in
computing partition sizes), which unfortunately isn't in Ubuntu. Could you
please give (a) the 3.4.8 packages from Debian a try and, if still failing, (b)
the experimental builds?

Thanks a lot,
Michael

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