[Server-devel] kernel panic in XS-163

[Tony Pearson]

> From: "Tim Moody" <timmoody at sympatico.ca>
> I took a much less heroic approach to getting a dual boot XS and other 
Linux 
> machine.  I put two drives in the box and installed linux on the second. 
 I 
> then disconnected the ribbon cable from that drive and did a livecd 
install 
> of xs 163 (which doesn't allow any partitioning).  Now I can re-connect 
the 
> second drive and fix up grub to be dual boot.  This doesn't address the 
raid 
> issue.

> I'd also be happy to compare notes on Moodle + Postgre.

Tim,
Thanks.  Yes, a friend came over to help, and we figured out the various
problems I was having.  The original request had a list of "must haves"
and "nice to haves" ( 
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Educational_Blogger_Project )
We need 
1.      A box and someone to image it with XS code (Tony) 
2.      A primary sys admin and support for them (Marcel) 
3.      An IP address, BW and a hosting location (Glen) 
Must haves: 
Ethernet configured for connection to Internet 
Accessible from XO laptops in Uruguay via HTTP 
Remote administration through SSH/FTP 
XS Software stack with web server, database, and utilities 
Recover CDs or DVDs 
Nice to haves: 
Alternative OS such as Debian 4.0-r3 Etch with Dual-boot option and Grub 
loader 
Alternative databases (MySQL versus PostgreSQL) 
Logical Volume Manager (LVM2) 
RAID-1 configuration between the two SATA disks 
Backup through Mondo Rescue, SysRescueCD, Partimage, or similar 
KVM virtualization that would allow other images to run as Linux guests 
Ability to hot-add USB keys or USB external drives 
Install "git" source code revision management software (yum install 
git-core) 

Lesson 1-- A kernel panic happens when there is a mismatch between the 
following three files:

/boot/grub/menu.lst
/etc/fstab
/etc/mtab

My problem was that I would change one thing at a time, reboot and see how
it worked, but in this case you need to make sure all the changes are made
consistently before rebooting.

Lesson 2-- The XS163.iso, Fedora7 and Debian4 all assume that if you have
two drives attached, that you want LVM2 and RAID pre-configured.  In the
case of XS163.iso, this meant that the line "--clearpart --all --sda" 
fails
because in "LVM2+RAID" install mode, it changes sda to 
/dev/mapper/pdc_bbbh.

My problem was that I had bult the hardware to its complete finished 
version,
and then tried to do the installations.  By disconnecting "drive 2" and 
doing
most of the work with only a single drive, all the OS images were quite 
happy.
Even the native vanilla XS-163.iso installed on this machine without 
problems.

I now have triple-boot working (XS-163, Fedora 7, and Debian 4), 
reconnected
the second drive, and am successfully RAID-1 mirroring the /boot directory
over to the second drive!  I will work on mirroing and converting the 
partitions into LVM2 logical volumes next.  Then try to figure out the 
Moodle+PostgreSQL situation after that.

I'm keeping notes in this wiki page:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Az990tony/edublog-beta-sw

Thanks





Tony Pearson
Senior Storage Consultant, IBM System Storage?
Telephone: +1 520-799-4309 |  tie 321-4309 |  Cell: +1 520 990-8669
email: tpearson at us.ibm.com |  GSA: http://tucgsa.ibm.com/~tpearson
Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/InsideSystemStorage
AKA: 990tony Paravane, eightbar specialist 


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