I am attempting to use MAGEIA 4 for my fileserver. The old one with MDK2006 is about to replaced. The hardware is simple: cheap PC with 2 4TB disks. The first problem: for reasons unknown to me, the vendor has partitioned the 2 disks with MSDOS partition. And this is no good because MSDOS partitions can not exceed 2 TB if I am correct. Unfortunately nowhere during the installation of MGA4, I can change the partition type of the disks to GPT. In MCC, there is no place where you can change the disk from MSDOS type to GPT type. For now: - add the 2 disks to the PC - install MGA on disk 1 - install gparted - use gparted to fix disk 2 - again fresh new install MGA on disk 2 - install gparted - use gparted to fix disk 1 That is a lot of effort to fix 2 disk. -------- Next The fileserver should have 1 big filesystem. In the old MDK2006, I did LVM accross disks, and on top of LVM a XFS filesystem. Has been working excellent for many years. - the filesystem must be encrypted. Just in case somebody would steal my PC, just to be sure. - for maintenance I do auto-load VNCserver and connect remotely to the fileserver using VNC. - I want the fileserver to do auto-boot. In the BIOS of the PC I can set stuff like "turn the PC in case of power failure". And when booting, the whole PC should boot, including up to the VNCserver such that after a reboot remote maintenance is possible. Here is the second problem How to do a encrypted filesystem, without MAGEIA waiting for a password while booting, without waiting for it FOREVER. I do not want that MAGEIA asks for this password at all. With the old MDK2006 fileserver, I could do a mount -all command, password was asked, and everything was fine. Some intermediate result - did manully edit /etc/fstab and put a # in front of the encrypted filesystem. However, no luck. Reboot the PC and MAGEIA waits forever for a password of a filesystem that I do not want to be mounted automatically. Here is the third problem While strugling with MCC, creating LVM, creating XFS ontop of that, checking this encryption-checkbox while creating XFS, editing manually /etc/fstab in the hope that MAGEIA would not ask for a password, at some moment disk 1 is back to MSDOS partition implying I can not use the 4 TB anymore. Back to square 1 and start all over again. Bummer. This is my second day of something simple: a fileserver. ----------- Conclustion so far - I would like in the installer and in MCC some option for changing a disk to GPT - I would like in the installer and in MCC some option for encrypted filesystems, but do not ask for passwords while booting, and do certainly not wait FOREVER for a password. Reproducible: Steps to Reproduce:
Conclusion so far - I would like in the installer and in MCC some option for changing a disk to GPT - I would like in the installer and in MCC some option for encrypted filesystems, but do not ask for passwords while booting, and do certainly not wait FOREVER for a password. - I would like that both the installer and MCC do NOT change a disk back to MSDOS when it is GPT, and certainly not when it is a 4 TB disk.
Some more intermediate result: As mentioned, I am back to square 1: - again fresh new install MGA on disk 2 - install gparted - use gparted to fix disk 1 because MCC has previously done something that it is again MSDOS partiotion. This time it is a bit different. After the reboot from disk 2 (MGA is installed on disk 2 such that I can fix disk 1 with gparted) - MCC hangs forever when attempting to do something with the disks Installed GPARTED - GPARTED warns me that disk 1 has a GPT signature, but an invalid fake msdos partition table. Apparently when attempting to use MCC, to LVM + XFS + encryption, somewhere MCC does a thing with the partition table of disk 1, and damage it. Beyond use.
Some more intermediate result: I am not sure what is happening now. Disk 1 is a GPT disk, once again, thanks to gparted. There is 1 small partition on it, for SWAP and the remainder must become a LVM partition. However, the option LVM in gparted is always grayed out. GPARTED does allow me to create a EXT4 partition, but not a LVM. No idea why. OK, lets try MCC. Make a LVM parition. Message "disk sda is about to be saved". Reboot. Again MCC. Bummer: it is not a LVM partition. I think I will try now hirens CD, delete whatever can be deleted on disk 1/sda, and try again. This all is becoming a lot of effort for something simple: a fileserver.
Could it be that something is missing? What RPM needs to be installed such that gparted on MGA4 does also do LVM? There is this menu in gparted that shows OS-supported-functions, and LVM2 PV is not supported. Some RPM is missing? Some dependency is missing?
@ r rbr Sorry to hear about your problems. I'm very sure the problems are real and am sad to read about the damaged disk However, this Bug report addresses more than one issue, which makes this report invalid :-( Please read https://wiki.mageia.org/en/How_to_report_a_bug_properly and try again (if you find one ore more of your bugs were already reported, then please comment in those reports instead of filing duplicates) I'll leave this report open for the damaged disk problem only (hope the developer who'll look into this will agree that a separate report is not needed): (In reply to r rbr from comment #2) > > This time it is a bit different. After the reboot from disk 2 (MGA is > installed on disk 2 such that I can fix disk 1 with gparted) > - MCC hangs forever when attempting to do something with the disks > > Installed GPARTED > - GPARTED warns me that disk 1 has a GPT signature, but an invalid fake > msdos partition table. > Apparently when attempting to use MCC, to LVM + XFS + encryption, somewhere > MCC does a thing with the partition table of disk 1, and damage it. Beyond > use. Changing severity to "Critical" because the disk became unusable
CC: (none) => marja11Assignee: bugsquad => pterjanSummary: gpt, large disk, installer => Disk damaged by MCC (was: gpt, large disk, installer)Severity: enhancement => critical
No progress....... Installed KDE partition manager 1.0.60 This is a bit of bummer because of other issues not yet mentioned. I am huge fan of the Trinity desktop. I completely do not care for the failed attempts of both KDE4 and GNOME to mimic what Apple has done with OSX. So, Trinity/KDE3 it is. Suggestion: include it default in MGA. Better suggestion, make it the default desktop (sorry, could not resist to state this. I am most happy with MGA and do highly appreciate all the work of the nice MGA people. But in my humble opinion both KDE4 and GNOME do suck big time. Thanks for reading this) Anyway, installed KDE partition manager 1.0.60. Bummer. KDE partition manager 1.0.60 does not have any LVM support. Is that because a dependency is missing? Same one that is missing for gparted? Up till now disk 2 is OK, in the sense that it - it is GPT - has a SAWP partition - the root partition - I can boot the PC from disk 2 - it contains a large unused LVM partition of 3.9 TB For now the LVM partitionis unused. I am first trying to get a LVM partition of 3.9 TB on disk 1. When I use KDE partition manager and look at disk 2, it shows nothing. Apparently KDE partition manager can not handle GPT disks. Bummer.
Btw, do you have journalctl -a output from when MCC was hanging and just before?
Source RPM: drake => diskdrake
Good question. And I should have thought of that myself. Now journalctl shows many lines with diskdrak, because of all of my attempts, and I am not really able to figure out the moment I had this hanging MCC-drakdisk issue. However, thanks to your good question, and me looking at journalctl, I saw this line "missing lvm2". So, installed LVM2 and now gparted can do LVM! Great. Some progress! Top-Tip: install package LVM2 if you want to do stuff with GPARTED.
Another Top-Tip I should mention: Whenever attempting to do something with 4 TB disks, and MCC, al all time click on this "toggle to expert mode" button, and then select 1-by-1 all disks, because only then MCC tells you it is GPT disk, or something else, like MSDOS disk (which is never OK for a 4 TB disk.......) Before doing anything with MCC, check that all the disks are still GPT disks.
Some answers: 1/ About GPT, it had been discussed but this is mostly a UI problem. Where would you do it in the installer? (Also if there is no partition table I believe we still default to MSDOS which is wrong for large disks but that's not your problem) 2/ Regarding the password on boot, I would expect that adding noauto to the partition so that it doesn't get mounted during boot is what you want
Some more result: Now that I have installed LVM2, I can use GPARTED. Good. Next, becoming enthousiastic about gparted, I did create a SWAP partition with gparted on disk1. And that does not work OK for MGA4. Shutdown shows this "wait for job from root message" for a long time, and a boot takes an extra minute because of the same message. After the boot, - when looking at the SWAP partition with MCC, I can do format, mount it. - when looking at the SWAP partition with gparted, I can do format and swapon. But MGA4 does not "like it". As stated, shutdown and boot are slow, and after the boot, the SWAP partition is not used. So, I did a dangerous thing (!): delete the SWAP with MCC, and in the empty space created it again with MCC. Reboot. Check with MCC that disk1 is still a GPT disk. And it is still a GPT disk! And no errors anymore with shutdown and boot. Good. So, the following is not really a Top-Tip because I am not to sure about this; a "you-can-do-it-as-followed-suggestion": use gparted for making sure that the disk is a GPT disk, but use MCC for creating SWAP partitions. And keep your fingers crossed and do hope that MCC does not change the disk from GPT to msdos.
Some more note: diskdrake uses libparted for detecting/handling GPT, which means that any problem in the partition table will be reported as "not valid GPT" by libparted and we will use the default (MSDOS).
OK, time for the ultimate goal: a large volume, across the 2 disk, encrypted. But no forever-wait-for-the-password-while-booting. I have 2 LVM partitions. Using MCC created 1 filesystem, choose XFS and this encryption checkmark. But did not mount it. That is the new trick. Reboot. Bummer. There is a vg-mga of 7.1 TB. But for reasons unknown to me, MCC states that the filesystem is BTRFS. Where did that come from? I can click on format, or use. Password is asked. But I can only do such a thing 1 time. The second time I click on any option in an attempt to format, use, mount vg-mga, there is a popup error "cryptsetup failed" Back to drawing board.....
Now I am sure: the following does NOT work: - delete all filesystems in vg-mga - reboot - MCC - check that all disks are still GPT - look at vg-mga: it is an empty 7.1 TB partition. The graphical representation of the disk is white. Next - select empty vg-mga - create button - select XFS - select this encrypt checkbox waiting, lots of formatting is being done..... After a while, when the "formatting...." popup is gone, the MCC screen is a bit strange. It shows a tabpage with vg-mga, but there is not the usual graphical representation of the disk/partition. It is empty. And all I can do is click the done button below in MCC screen. Do a reboot - Reboot is slow: a stop job is running for a session c1 of user root Boot is normal; no errors. However, after the boot, MCC tells me that vg-mga is BTRFS filesystem.
Try it again: - select empty vg-mga - create button - select XFS - select this encrypt checkbox waiting, lots of formatting is being done..... At the end the question "do yo want to save /etc/fstab". I think I do not want this, because it will imply that during boot, MAGEIA will wait forever for the password. But lets do it this time, answer with yes, and see what the result is. reboot: again slow because "a stop job is running for a session c1 of user root" boot: indeed MAGEIA wants me to enter the password. df output: I have a large 7.1 disk under /data and it is usuable. Started MCC: and MCC reports that vg-mga is 7.1 TB of size and is BTRFS. I now start to think that MCC is not able to show anything sensible if an encrypted JFS partition is used. Despite that it is succesfully mounted. Eh, yes, JFS this time. Selected the wrong one. I am getting sloppy after 2 days attempting to get me a fileserver.....
Does anyone of the nice MGA people have a suggestion for me: - how to get an encypted partition, using LVM - however, no waiting for a password during reboot because MGA waits forever - able to mount it later, with a command or script.
For the last two, having "noauto" option. Sorry, I don't have time to read the rest today.
Another problem: whenever I have reached the unwanted result that the encrypted partition is usuable and mounted, thanks to entering the password while the PC boots, I can not start again. I can do an umount /data It is unmounted. But then I want to use MCC, delete vg-mga, start again, etc, but from now on MCC always tell me about vg-mga lmremove logical volume vg-mga/1 is used by another device Note: MCC shows vg-mga as being (inactive). But MCC also stats that BTRFS is used so possible MCC is not able to show the correct info about vg-mga anymore once it contains an encrypted filesystem. This is lmremove-message is a bummer. Until I know how to fix this, I have only 1 choice: format all disks and start all over again.
about the noauto option, I assumed that I had to enter it in /etc/fstab /dev/mapper/crypt_vg_mga_1 /data jfs noatime,noauto 0 0 does not help; MAGEIA still wants me to enter a password while booting. it does help in the sense that the partition is not mounted, but the main problem is still the same: the PC does not reboot and start up because MAGIEA waits forever for the password (and after entering it, it does not mount the filesystem......)
(In reply to r rbr from comment #16) > Does anyone of the nice MGA people have a suggestion for me: > - how to get an encypted partition, using LVM Maybe this Forums thread is useful? https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6697
Thanks to the feedback and suggestions, I came accros this: https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Security_Guide/sect-Security_Guide-LUKS_Disk_Encryption-Manually_Encrypting_Directories.html and it describes with enough detail how to accomplish an encrypted filesystem that can be openened, and closed using a script. Exactly what I want to achieve: the PC should boot completely but not wait for a password while booting. For me this case can be closed. If I do attempt to sum it up: - partition encryption as done in MCC is pretty good. I use it on a laptop and they way it works is they way one does expect it to work. The possible improvements I do see: - MCC should be a bit smarter with disks larger then 2 TB: I think this is about the subject of MSDOS versus GPT partitions. - It would be nice to be able to delete/remove an encrypted partition. Now such is not possible because once it is there, all I get to see when attempting to delete it, is the error "lmremove logical volume vg-mga/1 is used by another device".
Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad you got it sorted out. So the disk was only temporarily unusable and not really damaged :-) I'll close this report, because the mix of issues made it invalid, anyway @ pterjan Feel free to reopen if you still want to use this report for one of the issues mentioned in it. Please adjust the summary to something better, then.
Status: NEW => RESOLVEDResolution: (none) => INVALIDSeverity: critical => normal