Booting Proxmox from NetApp Lun

M

makton

Member
Dec 7, 2009
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Booting Proxmox from NetApp Lun (RESOLVED)

I'm back again and testing these vizors in the workplace. I ran into a problem. I have 2 HP 1Us with hardware iSCSI for booting directly off a NetApp san. There are no drives in these 1Us and thus I must beable to boot proxmox off these servers.

then I use the bare-metal cd, all look fine, untill I reboot. The error is "no system disk or disk not available". and run HP disk utility and it stated that the disk is there and ready, but the boot sector is failed. I tried this install many times.

so, I have to take the debian path, which I was able to install debian into the server with the lun, but once I install the PVE and reboot, the PVE kernals crash. the regular debian kernals are just fine. How are you makeing the boot sector? is it in the partition or master boot?
 
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I been at this all day, trying to get this blasted thing to boot of the NetApp SAN. I was about to do it one with Debian Lenny, but once I added PVE, it paniced. Haven't been able to boot this thing since.

At this point, with having this hard of a time with this software, it isn't viable for me to present proxmox to my work.... I'm still in search of a clean KVM vizor what can boot off a SAN... and is not VMware.
 
I tried that yesterday with the exact same results. I can complete the install but on reboot, it gives a "non system disk, or disk error". that is with 4.1 and 5.1. I reinstalled VMware to insure it's the OS and WMware worked just fine. So I reinstalled Proxmox again and same result. I really need to know how you are handeling the boot loader. Are you installing on the boot partition or on the master boot record..

when I run the HP diag utility, built into the server, it states that I do not have a valid OS boot sector, so I'm thinking you are not installing on the master boot record and I have no ability to use your CD for a console to fix it. When I get to work gentoo 64bit live CD will be downloaded and I'm going to use that to chroot into your OS and rerun the grub to install on master boot record. If that works, I need that done from the CD. I'm not the only one that works with these servers.
 
At work now, and I took a 64BIT gentoo live CD to the system. was able to chroot into it and run grub to install on master boot record. still the same problem. I have no clue here.
 
makton said:
At work now, and I took a 64BIT gentoo live CD to the system. was able to chroot into it and run grub to install on master boot record. still the same problem. I have no clue here.
Click to expand...

Hi,
is there more than one disk connected to the host?
I had the effect, that the installer wrote the bootblock to the wrong disk. After i use only one disk during the install, all works.

Udo
 
The only disk on this is the LUN. The thing that is tripping me up here is that I'm not even booting the OS. It can't find the boot sector. I manually set it and still no. I install Debian64Bit and ended up with the same results.

I actually have 2 of the HP 1Us and I'm prepping the second one. I might have a corrupted LUN and so I'm going to try the 1.5 on my second 1U.

Another thing I noticed is that you have a drive space requirement, but you don't state what that requirement is for just the OS. I'm using NFS share on the SAN for all the VM so I don't need a bunch of space on the OS, but I'm being forced to use 10gig LUNS and wasting space.

Any more ideas? I'll update after I set the second system.
 
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Here is an update on my servers..

WE HAVE LIFT OFF!!!!

I finally got both my LUN only HP servers to boot. I believe problem is mixed LVM and possible how the boot loader is configured. I had to use the AMD64 Debian Lenny approch to ge the system to boot, then I followed your how-to and matched to 2 LUN server with my local disk server. The 2 LUN server are on the 1.5 2.6.18-1 kernels and the locak disk server has been upgraded to 1.5 2.6.24-8. I intend to make all of them 2.6.32 as I'm after the KSM, but don't know if I'm ready to take that on yet.

In short, I think we need to see the options for the boot loader in the installer, and we need to have the option to "NOT" user lvm as none of these server will be using it.

If we can get these resolved with the next installer, I can test the installer out. If all works, I will probably be having the company I work for, talk to Proxmox, regarding this solution.

Again, thanks.
Mike
 
well, since I got all three of my servers running and clustered, I'll have to kill one of them to test this cd.. I'll let you know this week. I think part of this issue is the SAN and the HP, but it seems if I use LVM I'm screwed. I'll give the new CD a shot next week.

Hell, I want the KSM anyway so I'm going to change all the kernels anyway.

Thanks for this..
Mike
 
Hi!

We have the exact same problem. The bare metal installation works fine, seeing all LUNs, but the HP servers won't boot from the HP SAN. We tried the latest PROXMOX version. Any solutions to this problem?

Thanks, gonwalf
 
What I ended up doing is the the debian install with proxmox on top.. I'm thinking that the LUNs don't like the way the PROXMOX installs the bootloader and I know that debian has no problem. So, I installed the base system of debian and then followed the WIKI to installing PROXMOX on top of that. Worked like a dream, but I suggest you use the 2.6.18 kernel to start this.

I run a PROXMOX vizor at home on an AMD Phenom 4X 2.3 gig with the 2.6.24(or 26, can't remember) and the system likes to reboot periodically. At work, I'm running a dev(test) VM network with 3 HPs (2 are LUNs) and the 2.6.18 kernel. They have been running for months now with no problems. Sadly, they are doing better than our VMware Vizors, which are the other 4 HPs we have(all luns)... I think, eventually, all our HPs will be PROXMOX and I'm talking with my bosses about sending these devs some thankyou's (or I'm going to myself for Vizor at my house)...

To the DEVs, we really need more control on the install for the bootloader and the filesystem.. I don't really use LVM and with some applications, LVMs are actually a bad idea. Thanks in advance..
 
only with LVM you can do snapshot backups with vzdump. so the default best way for most is the auto partitioning with LVM. if you are unhappy with this you can do the Debian install and on top Proxmox VE - as you already did it.

the future: maybe btrfs (raid and snapshots inside the file system)
 
Booting from HP SAN

Hi!

As I've learned from the Docs, we need LVM for being able to use Live Migration, is that right? Today we'll try to go the Debian way with LVM with 2 hosts reading from the SAN.

gonwalf
 
Re: Booting from HP SAN

or NFS.
 
Re: Booting from HP SAN

Yep, I use a NetAPP San and NFS for all my VMs and nothing is on my vizors. This is why I'm not even using LVM as it more configuration, especially with the debian install. I use only ext3 on my LUN HPs.
 
Re: Booting from HP SAN

Ok I found the reason why the HPs won't boot after using the Proxmox install, but boot with no problem on my Debian setup..

Dietmar or Tom, PLEASE GIVE CONTROL OF PARTITIONING SCHEME IN THE INSTALL!!!!!!

The problem with the HPs are that they use an interesting hardware array and they are only allow to have the bootable partition size of 4G or lower (8 with another feature in the Bios). The Proxmox install does the entire drive in LVM and makes it the bootable partition. The way I install Debian, my first partition is a 2G bootable partition for my /boot. So the HPs have no problem with my method of install, because the partition is 82(linux) and is under the 4/8 gig limit. The Proxmox install doesn't do this and thus, I have to do the Debian to Proxmox on all my HPs..

Again.. GIVE US CONTROL!!! You can tell, I really care about the LVM as I use the NetAPP San or my FreeNAS with NFS and don't need the LVM, and don't like it..

Other than that, the Prox Vizors are pretty bullet proof. Great job on all that...
 
Re: Booting from HP SAN

makton said:
The problem with the HPs are that they use an interesting hardware array and they are only allow to have the bootable partition size of 4G or lower (8 with another feature in the Bios). The Proxmox install does the entire drive in LVM and makes it the bootable partition. The way I install Debian, my first partition is a 2G bootable partition for my /boot. So the HPs have no problem with my method of install, because the partition is 82(linux) and is under the 4/8 gig limit. The Proxmox install doesn't do this and thus,..
Click to expand...

Sorry, but that us simply not true. We also create a boot partition (like debian).
 
Re: Booting from HP SAN

that boot partition is in the LVM... take it out of the lvm.. the HP bios sees the LVM as a single drive and not as three pieces like you have it.
 
Re: Booting from HP SAN

makton said:
that boot partition is in the LVM... take it out of the lvm.. the HP bios sees the LVM as a single drive and not as three pieces like you have it.
Click to expand...
Hi,
that's not right:
Code: 
#fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00069f7e

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          65      522080+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2              66       38913   312043872   8e  Linux LVM

# mount
/dev/sda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
/dev/mapper/pve-root on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/mapper/pve-data on /var/lib/vz type ext3 (rw)
...
this is from my laptop - a standard proxmox installation (with additional packages).
Nevertheless will be a partition-tool during the installation nice, but with a little (or better little bit more) handwork you can get the layout you want also at this time.

Udo
 
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