Stephen Gran on 25 Dec 2003 20:25:03 -0500


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Re: [PLUG] lilo warning / question


On Thu, Dec 25, 2003 at 12:05:39PM -0500, Jeff Abrahamson said:
> On doing a dist-upgrade, lilo reports an error:
> 
>     asterix:/etc# lilo
>     Warning: '/proc/partitions' does not match '/dev' directory structure.
> 	Name change: '/dev/scsi/host1/bus0/target0/lun0/disc' -> '/dev/sda'
>     Fatal: VolumeID read error: sector 0 of /dev/sda not readable
>     asterix:/etc#
> 
> The only thing on /dev/sda is removable media that I wouldn't expect
> to be mounted:
> 
>     jeff@asterix:jeff $ grep sd /etc/fstab
>     /dev/sda1       /cflash         vfat    defaults,user,noauto            0       0
>     /dev/sdb1       /smartmedia     vfat    defaults,user,noauto            0       0
>     jeff@asterix:jeff $
> 
> If I comment out both, the error goes away.  (Oddly, it matters if I
> comment out /dev/sdb1 or not.)  So I comment them out, run lilo, and
> then put them back.
> 
>     asterix:/etc# lilo
>     Warning: '/proc/partitions' does not match '/dev' directory structure.
> 	Name change: '/dev/scsi/host1/bus0/target0/lun0/disc' -> '/dev/sda'
>     Added Linux *
>     Added LinuxOLD
>     asterix:/etc# 
> 
> But why?  I don't like mysterious lilo events.

The Warning line (as you probably guessed) is harmless - it looks at
System.map, seees your kernel has devfs support, and then opens /dev/sda
and /dev/scsi/host1/bus0/target0/lun0/disc, or tries to.  Since you
don't have the devfs daemon running, opening the second one fails, and
lilo understands this as 'difference', rather than a fatal error, so it
continues.

It looks like this problem may have already been adressed - this is from
the changelog entries for 22.5.8:

 - Make VolumeID scan skip INACCESSIBLE drives (device.c)

Trying with a newer lilo than you probably have (running sid on this
laptop), I see that lilo tries to get volume id's from each of my
partitions, so this is probably what's going on.  Oddly, it doesn't
appear to touch fstab, only mtab - are the devices mounted when this
happens, or no?  Maybe this was the change, the it went from reading
fstab to readin mtab to see what drives are accessible.  You can try
investigating with 
strace -f lilo -v 2>&1 | less
lots of output, but at least it'll give you a better starting point.

Hope that helps a little,
-- 
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|  Stephen Gran                  | Humor in the Court: Q: (Showing man     |
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