Auto installation with LVM on root fails

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1

Situation

You try install a System with autoyast, but during the first system boot (YaST stage 2) the boot fails with following message:

Waiting for device /dev// to appear: ......... not found exiting to /bin/sh

$ _

The issue is a bug in mkinitrd which fails to parse some output correctly. It only happens when the disc does not contain any partitions or LVM informations from a older/previous installation. If the disc has LVM partitions already that are to be removed during the new installation this bug does not appear. The issue has been reported to engineering.

Resolution

To workaround this issue you can include a special script into your autoyast.xml file.The script must be chrootand the chrooted option as to be false (for more information refer to the autoinstall documentation). It fixes the mkinitrd bug during installation.

#!/bin/bash
# save a copy of the original mkinitrd
cp /mnt/sbin/mkinitrd /mnt/sbin/mkinitrd.orig
# now patch mkinitrd in place
sed -i -e 's/Minor: \$minor/Minor: \$minor\$/' /mnt/sbin/mkinitrd
exit 0

The following is an example of a portion of an autoyast.xml file that works around the issue.

Additional Information

NOTE: You may need to run mkinitrd as follows in addition to the workaround:

mkinitrd -f lvm2

Disclaimer

This Support Knowledgebase provides a valuable tool for SUSE customers and parties interested in our products and solutions to acquire information, ideas and learn from one another. Materials are provided for informational, personal or non-commercial use within your organization and are presented "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.