systemd does not find all partitions during boot

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SLES Configure-Administer
1

Hi,

i’m getting desperate. I installed a fresh SLES 12 SP3, but it does not boot cleanly.
Systemd is always hanging here:
https://hmgubox.helmholtz-muenchen.de/f/df2c63af75d7458cac0e/?dl=1 . Unfortunately i didn’t find a way to copy/paste from the remote console, neither Java nor .NET. So i have to provide you with screenshots :-))
IMHO it seems that the device nodes are not present. After 90s systemd continues and finishes in an emergency shell. But then the device nodes are visible !
Under /dev/disk/by-uuid and directly unter /dev/sda*
I followed https://www.suse.com/de-de/support/kb/doc/?id=7018491 and extended the timeout to 200s, but that didn’t help.
When i start top i just see 0KiB total for swap. My root volume is BTRFS, but just the root volume is mounted, not the subvolumes like /opt, /usr/local …
I changed the entries in fstab from UUID to /dev/sda*, but that doesn’t help. Swap and /boot is still missing, and all BTRFS subvolumes. I can /dev/sda3 to /boot manually.
But trying to mount the subvolumes via mount -a does not succeed. But without any error message.
What also is strange is where / is mounted:
https://hmgubox.helmholtz-muenchen.de/f/21b095deee9143bca13b/?dl=1

Journalctl -xb says the jobs are timed out.

I’m thankful for each help.

Bernd

2

Hi,

i’m still struggling. What i’m very surprised about is my strange mountpoint for my root /: https://hmgubox.helmholtz-muenchen.de/f/21b095deee9143bca13b/?dl=1.
Is that the problem or is that a result of the problem? /proc/cmdline does not show anything with snapshots, there everything seems to be right.
The devicce files are available now like sda2 or sda3, i can mount sda3 manually and swapon sda2.
Is it correct that i don’t find the corresponding device units in /usr/lib/systemd/system ? IMHO they are created on the fly by systemd-fstab-generator, but afterwards deleted ?

And … does anyone know how to copy/paste in the ILO RC ? It’s pretty poor to create snapshots.

Bernd

3

Hi
So can you check /etc/fstab and /etc/default/grub for the UUID entries

The mount -a command won’t work for btrfs subvolumes you need to mount for example;

mount -t btrfs -o subvol=new_subvol /dev/sda2 /mnt/new_subvol
mount -t btrfs -o subvol=snapshot_of_root /dev/sda2 /mnt/snap

You can see all the references vi /usr/sbin/blkid command.

4

Hi,

Thanks for that information, Malcom.
I’m still struggling. This is my first intensive contact with systemd … init was so easy :-))
I still can’t understand why my / is mounted to a snapshot: https://hmgubox.helmholtz-muenchen.de/f/21b095deee9143bca13b/
I tried to configure my initrd with a “normal” root:https://hmgubox.helmholtz-muenchen.de/f/0332cc0dab324c32addf/
But the results of dracut showed also the root with the snapshot, beneath my configured root: https://hmgubox.helmholtz-muenchen.de/f/dfaf1e15cba647deb420/
And also journalctl confirms that: https://hmgubox.helmholtz-muenchen.de/f/c129fc90ac934c8aaf81/
From where does it come ? It must be configured somewhere. Does anyone know where ?

I also followed https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=192991 , but the device for my BTRFS volume timed out again, although it’s visible under /dev/disk/by-uuid !?!

Bernd

5

Hi
So it must have booted into the snapshot…? At GRUB advanced option do you see this snapshot?

On my SLED 12 SP3 I see;

dracut --print-cmdline

resume=UUID=852981f9-f3a8-45ee-a793-eac221e8521a root=UUID=6f38513f-8a76-41ee-b9ff-44de1d8b8701 rootfstype=btrfs rootflags=rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=257,subvol=/@,subvol=@

The other place to look is /etc/default/grub, if you make changes remember to run;

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Maybe there was an error running this during install?

6

This is my dracut --print-cmdline: https://hmgubox.helmholtz-muenchen.de/f/112f657bd05b42468600/
From where does it comes, where could it be configured ?
I find nothing neither in dacut,conf nor in dracut.conf.d

Bernd

7

Hi
My guess is using the files in /usr/lib/dracut/ for the initial
configuration…

The UUID’s should match the ones in /etc/fstab. They should also be
present in /boot/grub2/grub.cfg.

So when you boot the system at grub, in advanced options do you get a
list of snapshots to boot from?

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SLES 15 RC4 | GNOME Shell 3.26.2 | 4.12.14-18-default
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!

8

[QUOTE=malcolmlewis;52640]Hi
My guess is using the files in /usr/lib/dracut/ for the initial
configuration…

The UUID’s should match the ones in /etc/fstab. They should also be
present in /boot/grub2/grub.cfg.[/QUOTE]

They do.

[QUOTE=malcolmlewis;52640]So when you boot the system at grub, in advanced options do you get a
list of snapshots to boot from?[/QUOTE]

No.

Bernd

9

Hi
All very strange… So what is the disk setup (type) and hardware?

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SLES 15 RC4 | GNOME Shell 3.26.2 | 4.12.14-18-default
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!

10

[QUOTE=malcolmlewis;52676]Hi
All very strange… So what is the disk setup (type) and hardware?

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SLES 15 RC4 | GNOME Shell 3.26.2 | 4.12.14-18-default
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks![/QUOTE]

Thanks for your help Malcom. I reinstalled the system without BTRFS (i still have some doubts), now system is running fine.

Bernd