Problem with installing a new harddisk...

[lonely wolf]

Daniel J Walsh wrote:

> jckyau at cs.hku.hk wrote:
>
>> Hello Daniel,
>>
>> dwalsh at redhat.com wrote:
>>  
>>
>>> jckyau cs hku hk wrote:
>>>   
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I am very new to SELinux, so, please bear with my ignorance.
>>>>
>>>> I have installed a Fedora Core 3 with SELinux enabled.  The system
>>>> has been running pretty stable until I tried to installed a new 
>>>> harddisk
>>>> to my system.  The system fails during the booting process if I 
>>>> have my
>>>> new harddisk installed.  It stops booting whenever I reach the 
>>>> point of
>>>> setting up the ppp (I rely on a PPPoE line to connect to the 
>>>> Internet).
>>>> But it boots smoothly when I have the new harddisk removed.  I 
>>>> think it
>>>> is a problem with SELinux (though I am not sure) as it gives me all
>>>> kinds of complains regarding permissions.
>>>>
>>>> I am pretty sure that it isn't a problem with the harddisk, as this
>>>> harddisk works fine when installed into another computer.  I've also
>>>> tried to install another harddisk to my SELinux box, and got the same
>>>> result.  Any clue??
>>>> Many thanx in advance!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     
>>>
>>> It needs to be labeled.
>>>
>>> touch /.autorelabel
>>> shutdown  machine
>>> add disk
>>> boot machine
>>>
>>>
>>> -- 
>>>
>>>   
>>
>>  Thank you for your reply.  However, it didn't work for me.  With
>>  "/.autorelabel" and my new harddisk installed, the system took a
>>  very long time to "relabel" the filesystem at the booting phase
>>  (I guess it was my original root filesystem that it was relabeling),
>>  and continued with the booting afterwards.  But the booting was done
>>  (took a very long time), my root filesystem (which is the only
>>  filesystem on my original harddisk) was mounted as readonly.
>>  Certainly, a system with a readonly root filesystem doesn't do me any
>>  good.  More suggestions? 
>

Are you sure that the problems do not come from the fact that you have 
two filesystems labeled as '/" and the initialiation process trying to 
mount the wrong one?
I'd give a shot and replace the line (use the values appropiate for you)
      kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.10-1.770_FC3 ro root=LABEL=/
with
      kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.10-1.770_FC3 ro root=/dev/hdaN  <=== use here 
the value corresponding to the root partition of your first disk

Do not forget to (but I assume you have already done that)
- create a valid mount point for the second HD
- add an entry for it in fstab
- touch  /.autorelabel (so that the second HD gets relabeled too)