FC4 Install breaking FSTAB File - NOT SWAP GARBAGE BUG

Wed Sep 28 01:02:46 UTC 2005

On Tue, 2005-09-27 at 16:58 -0500, Edward.D.Kramer at wellsfargo.com wrote:
> Rick thank you so much for turning me onto the e2label command, I guess
> it does help to read the bottom of a man page some time.  Anyway, I
> found the problem, the installer segmented the partitions on my drive,
> but it failed to format them into ext3.  There were three total
> partitions that were messed up, and I fixed one of them just to make
> sure I had found the issue.  I reformatted the partion, labeled it, then
> mounted it, boom she booted fine with the new partion.  I cant thank you
> enough for the e2label command, it will be used heavily in my arsenal
> now :)

Glad to help.

> After speakwing with some friends I decided to drop FC4 and go to FC3.
> so far I have accomplished more in the past 24 hours than I did in 4
> days with FC4.  I guess I can atleast say I was able to get it up and
> running :)  But I don't have the time these days to be trail blazing the
> path of Fedora, I get enough of it at work!

There is quite a kernel jump from RH9 to FC4.  FC3 is a bit more stable,
but I think you just ran across an anaconda (the installer) issue.  It'd
be a help if you could file a bugzilla report on it.

> Im sure we'll cross again on the discussion lists :)

I'm sure.  I'm always (well, most of the time at least) here.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com
> [mailto:redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Rick
> Stevens
> Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 06:22 PM
> To: Getting started with Red Hat Linux
> Subject: RE: FC4 Install breaking FSTAB File - NOT SWAP GARBAGE BUG
> 
> On Mon, 2005-09-26 at 19:28 -0500, Edward.D.Kramer at wellsfargo.com wrote:
> > Thanks Rick I will give the e2label command a shot, I have never seen
> or
> > heard of it before, so Im looking forward to using it.  Im fairly
> > comfortable with the mtab file and fstab, I guess that's why I was so
> > shocked when things weren't working.
> 
> Again, you should NEVER have to touch /etc/mtab.  It is maintained by
> the mount command itself.
> 
> > I even had no problem adding a 250GB(with 130 GB of music on it) HD
> from
> > my previous RH9 environment, created the mtab entry and fstab, it
> > mounted perfectly fine.   
> 
> Again, /etc/mtab is maintained by mount(1).
> 
> > The error message I get is during boot, and it literally says
> something
> > like:
> > 
> > Error on Invalid Line #X where X is the line number that sets the
> > partition label for /home or /opt. Then is prompts for Control-D or
> > Maintenance mode.
> 
> It's asking for the CTRL-D stuff because you have "2" at the end of the
> lines, meaning that the filesystem MUST be checked via fsck, but after
> any other filesystems that have a "1" at the end.
> 
> >   No more no less. I have never had any problems like
> > this installing Redhat before.  I have been using it since RH 5.2 back
> > when you had to compile your own tulip.c just to get Ethernet running
> :)
> 
> Only if you had the "new" DECchip ethernet card, Edward!  ;-)
> 
> > Anyway, I will see what the actual label is.
> 
> Did you try the mount without labels?  You can also do that
> in /etc/fstab, just use "/dev/hdax" instead of "LABEL=/home").
> 
> > I spoke with a bunch of my collegues and they all recommended going to
> > FC3 instead.  Thoughts on that statement?
> 
> No, I wouldn't bother.  FC3 and FC4 both use the 2.6 kernel and
> filesystem utilities.  This sounds like the old "quantum leap up four
> levels of OS updates"...there are going to be some glitches.  In this
> case, it sounds like an oopsie in anaconda's handling of existing
> labels--especially if the partitions will mount using the device name.
> 
> Personally, I don't like using labels.  There can be issues if you add a
> drive with a partition that has a label that's the same as one on the
> main drive...which one the system will actually mount is anyone's guess
> at that point.
> 
> To paraphrase Heisenberg,  "You can never know what's mounted!"
> 
> Oh, and by the way, we prefer bottom posting on this list.
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com
> > [mailto:redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Rick
> > Stevens
> > Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 04:51 PM
> > To: Getting started with Red Hat Linux
> > Subject: Re: FC4 Install breaking FSTAB File - NOT SWAP GARBAGE BUG
> > 
> > On Mon, 2005-09-26 at 18:09 -0500, Edward.D.Kramer at wellsfargo.com
> wrote:
> > > I have been using RH9 for years and decided to make the jump to FC4
> > > and so far Im very disappointed.  I ran into the SWAP garbage bug
> and
> > > was able to get into resucue mode and clean up this line within the
> > > fstab file.  However, during my install I had created several
> > > partions, /, /boot, /home, /opt.  The / and /boot lines seem fine to
> > > be fine but the /home and /opt partitions were throwing invalid line
> > > errors.  I removed the lines and boom it started right up.  Now the
> > > problem is that, Im missing the disk space that I partitioned for,
> and
> > > I have attempted to remap the partitions in the mtab file and made
> the
> > > corresponding updates in the fstab file.  Boom Im still getting
> > > invalid line errors on in my fstab.  I can see the HAD partions have
> > > been created, I have tried mapping these in mtab file labeling it
> > > to /home, then using the following line FSTAB.   
> > > 
> > >  
> > > 
> > > Fstab entry
> > > 
> > > LABEL=/home            /home                   ext3    defaults 1 2
> > > 
> > >  
> > > 
> > >  
> > > 
> > > Any thoughts on what Im doing wrong?  Or is there some funky bug
> with
> > > the installer on partitions other than root and boot with FC4?
> > 
> > I should first recommend that you NEVER futz with /etc/mtab manually
> > unless you're really, really certain of what you're doing.  /etc/mtab
> is
> > the primary way the filesystem utilities know what's where.
> > 
> > I'd like to see exactly what errors you're getting with the lines in
> > fstab.  My initial guess is that there really aren't labels on the
> > filesystem as you think there are.  If you know what the partitions
> are,
> > try running "e2label <devicename>" (e.g. "e2label /dev/hda7") and
> verify
> > that the labels are what you think they are.  There may be an extra
> > space or something tacked on them that's not obvious.  You may even
> want
> > to do something like "e2label /dev/hda7 | od -c".  You should see
> > something like this:
> > 
> > 	[root at nprophead Utilities]# e2label /dev/hda7 | od -c
> > 	0000000   /   u   s   r  \n
> > 	0000005
> > 
> > showing that there's no embedded spaces or anything in there.  Another
> > quick check is if you can mount them by device name instead of by
> > labels:
> > 
> > 	mount /dev/hda7 /usr
> > 
> > If that works, then there's definitely something rotten in the labels.
> > You can use e2label to change them:
> > 
> > 	[root at nprophead Utilities]# umount /usr
> > 	[root at nprophead Utilities]# e2label /dev/hda7 /usr
> > 
> > then you can try to mount via labels again:
> > 
> > 	[root at nprophead Utilities]# mount -L /usr /usr

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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-   To err is human.  To forgive, a large sum of money is needed.    -
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