Bug#582342: grub-pc: fails to load ramdisk on boot; system with RAID & CRYPTO; tested initramfs-tools under bug #582177

[C. Cropper]

Package: grub-pc
Version: 1.98-1
Severity: important
Tags: squeeze

Please see debian bug #582177 for some already-done debuging.  The only __grub__ bug I could find that seemed relevant to this problem was #575076.

Very recent changes to the grub-pc have caused my system to fail to "load ramdisk" at boot.  I have to boot the system with the backup initrd image. I have checked with "rootdelay=10"--no change.  The problem originally was thought to be in the initramfs-tools package. The problems appeared in mid-February 2010. I am only using the squeeze dataset without items from experimental or other sources. 

My system is different from most in that my / partition is inside a luks crypto container which is then on a RAID 6 volume.  The /boot is on an unencrypted RAID 1 volume.  Each physical disk has a separate bios_grub partition (128k) and the partition tables are GPT.

As I said before this above setup WORKS and I have a 6TB system where the "boot" disk can fail (I tested this) and the system comes back alive.  For whatever reason, recent changes to grub-pc 1) make it not "see" the hard drives or any USB devices for that mater, 2) fails to start the RAID devices, and thus 3) the kernel panics during the boot sequence.

Thank you for all your work.

C. Cropper



-- Package-specific info:

*********************** BEGIN /proc/mounts
/dev/mapper/md1_crypt / xfs rw,relatime,attr2,logbsize=256k,sunit=512,swidth=1536,noquota 0 0
/dev/md0 /boot xfs rw,sync,relatime,wsync,attr2,noquota 0 0
/dev/mapper/bbox /bbox xfs rw,relatime,attr2,logbufs=8,noquota 0 0
*********************** END /proc/mounts

*********************** BEGIN /boot/grub/device.map
(hd0)	/dev/sda
(hd1)	/dev/sdb
(hd2)	/dev/sdc
(hd3)	/dev/sdd
(hd4)	/dev/sde
(hd5)	/dev/sdf
*********************** END /boot/grub/device.map

*********************** BEGIN /boot/grub/grub.cfg
#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then
  load_env
fi
set default="0"
if [ ${prev_saved_entry} ]; then
  set saved_entry=${prev_saved_entry}
  save_env saved_entry
  set prev_saved_entry=
  save_env prev_saved_entry
  set boot_once=true
fi

function savedefault {
  if [ -z ${boot_once} ]; then
    saved_entry=${chosen}
    save_env saved_entry
  fi
}
insmod raid
insmod mdraid
insmod xfs
set root='(md0)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set aa3fde3d-abc0-468b-8188-fa3a8d3f9fce
if loadfont /grub/unicode.pf2 ; then
  set gfxmode=640x480
  insmod gfxterm
  insmod vbe
  if terminal_output gfxterm ; then true ; else
    # For backward compatibility with versions of terminal.mod that don't
    # understand terminal_output
    terminal gfxterm
  fi
fi
insmod raid
insmod mdraid
insmod xfs
set root='(md0)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set aa3fde3d-abc0-468b-8188-fa3a8d3f9fce
set locale_dir=($root)/grub/locale
set lang=en
insmod gettext
set timeout=5
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
insmod raid
insmod mdraid
insmod xfs
set root='(md0)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set aa3fde3d-abc0-468b-8188-fa3a8d3f9fce
insmod png
if background_image /grub/moreblue-orbit-grub.png ; then
  set color_normal=black/black
  set color_highlight=magenta/black
else
  set menu_color_normal=cyan/blue
  set menu_color_highlight=white/blue
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry "Debian GNU/Linux, with Linux 2.6.32-3-amd64" --class debian --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
	insmod raid
	insmod mdraid
	insmod xfs
	set root='(md0)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set aa3fde3d-abc0-468b-8188-fa3a8d3f9fce
	echo	Loading Linux 2.6.32-3-amd64 ...
	linux	/vmlinuz-2.6.32-3-amd64 root=/dev/mapper/md1_crypt ro  quiet
	echo	Loading initial ramdisk ...
	initrd	/initrd.img-2.6.32-3-amd64
}
menuentry "Debian GNU/Linux, with Linux 2.6.32-3-amd64 (recovery mode)" --class debian --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
	insmod raid
	insmod mdraid
	insmod xfs
	set root='(md0)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set aa3fde3d-abc0-468b-8188-fa3a8d3f9fce
	echo	Loading Linux 2.6.32-3-amd64 ...
	linux	/vmlinuz-2.6.32-3-amd64 root=/dev/mapper/md1_crypt ro single 
	echo	Loading initial ramdisk ...
	initrd	/initrd.img-2.6.32-3-amd64
}
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
*********************** END /boot/grub/grub.cfg

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-3-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages grub-pc depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]         1.5.32     Debian configuration management sy
ii  grub-common                   1.98-1     GRand Unified Bootloader, version 
ii  libc6                         2.10.2-6   Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  ucf                           3.0025     Update Configuration File: preserv

grub-pc recommends no packages.

Versions of packages grub-pc suggests:
ii  desktop-base                  5.0.5      common files for the Debian Deskto

-- debconf-show failed