install corrupts existing ext3 multi-boot partitions

[John Reiser]

I believe that I may have suffered a case where a fresh install of
Fedora Core 3 [Test 3] with SELinux in targeted, permissive mode borked
existing multi-booted installations of RedHat 9, RedHat 8.0, and RedHat
7.3 [separate ext3 root filesystems for each].  The typical symptom when
booting an old system is a console message:
    Freeing unused kernel memory:  156k freed
    attempt to access beyond end of device
    03:09: rw=0, want=1219858868, limit=5863693
    Kernel panic: No init found.  Try passing init= option to kernel.
I definitely had been multibooting FC2 with selinux=disabled in
/etc/sysconfig/selinux.  I changed to targeted, permissive mode for
FC3test1, FC3test2, and FC3test3.  The last successful boot of RH9
was July 20 according to its /var/log/messages.

The cause might be that install causes all existing ext3 filesystems
get the new attribute ext_attr, and older kernels have bugs interpreting
this.  This seems to happen even for filesystems that were omitted from
the mount list when DiskDruid was run during install of FC3test3.  "Auto
management" of /media/idediskN might be a reason why.

Both RH9 e2fsck 1.32 (09-Nov-2002) and RHEL3 e2fsck 1.35 (28-Feb-2004)
say that all filesystems are OK [checked in RH9 rescue mode, and from
RHEL3: unmount, then "e2fsck -f /dev/hda9", etc.], but the old kernels
don't get it.  A multibooted RHEL3 2.4.21-20.EL does work correctly.

Which component(s) deserve(s) a bugzilla report for this?  Exactly where
in the install process did ext_attr get applied to existing filesystems?
It seems to me that the Release Notes for Fedora Core 3 should mention
this situation.

So, how do I recover?  [I need to boot the old systems to support
customers who run them.]  What about a procedure like this:
   1. Boot RH9 rescue mode.  Create a new ext3 without ext_attr.
   2. Boot FC3test3 rescue mode with selinux=0.  Mount old and new
      partitions; copy all files from old to new.
   3. Edit /etc/fstab of FC3test3 to list all ext3 partitions,
      and use 'ro' [readonly] or 'noauto' for ones that must
      not ever have ext_attr turned on.
   4. Try to boot RH9 using the new copy (after adjusting the ext3 label,
      etc.)

What am I overlooking?

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