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Okay so I ran into a situation while trying to perform a CentOS 5.5 PXE boot kickstart install on a Dell PowerEdge 2950 with a PERC6/i RAID controller along with dual LSI Logic/Symbios Logic SAS1068 Fusion-MPT SAS RAID controllers connected to two Dell MD3000 storage arrays.

The issue was in that I was wanting the operating system to install on the PERC RAID volume and not on the MD3000's but Anaconda was picking up the 8 volumes on the MD3000's (4 volumes each) and then the internal RAID volume as the 9th (/dev/sdi). All combinations and modifications I made to the kickstart config didn't seem to have any effect. The only option I was left with was to remove the SAN cable connections to the SAS1068's and install CentOS then reconnect the SAN cables and reconfigure to mount their volumes which were now being seen as /dev/sd[b-i] rather than /dev/sd[a-h].

I got around the problem this time with having to drive in and physically manage things but would have been nice to managed it remotely which is why we had the system equipped with KVM over IP and a PXE boot build network. I exhausted all my tricks and knowledge on kickstarts and CentOS installs and couldn't solve this problem but was able to navigate all the others.

Updated to include kickstart used that fails, the base repo is given in the PXE boot APPEND options as method=http://internal.mirror.host/centos/5.5/os/x86_64.

install
lang en_US.UTF-8
keyboard us
network --bootproto dhcp --noipv6 --hostname centos
firewall --disabled
rootpw --iscrypted <encrypted passwd>
text
skipx
authconfig --enableshadow --enablemd5
selinux --disabled
timezone --utc UTC
bootloader --location=mbr --driveorder=sda
zerombr
repo --name=updates --baseurl=http://internal.mirror.host/centos/5/updates/x86_64/
firstboot --disable
services --disabled pcscd,hidd,bluetooth,pand,isdn,cups,avahi-daemon
services --enabled sshd
reboot
ignoredisk --drives=sdb,sdc,sdd,sde,sdf,sdg,sdh,sdi,sdj,sdk,sdl,sdm

clearpart --linux --drives=sda
part / --fstype ext3 --size=5000 --asprimary --ondisk=sda
part swap --size=8400 --ondisk=sda
part /tmp --fstype ext3 --size=5000 --ondisk=sda 
part /opt --fstype ext3 --size=10000 --ondisk=sda
part /home --fstype ext3 --size=5000 --ondisk=sda
part /var --fstype ext3 --size=100 --grow --ondisk=sda

%packages
@base
@core
@system-tools
@text-internet
keyutils
trousers
fipscheck
device-mapper-multipath
audit
Jeremy Bouse
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1 Answers1

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Just wanted to let you know how I got around this..

There is an option you can specify in your ks-config called: ignoredisk --drives=disk1,disk2,disk3,etc....

The number of disks you specify has to be equal the number of LUNs presented to the server.. in my case there were four (4) so I specified ignoredisk --drives=sda,sdb,sdc,sde

You will also have to specify a driveorder in your bootloader line telling Anaconda where to install the bootloader:

bootloader --location=mbr --driveorder=cciss/c0d0 (in the case of a Compaq controller)

  • I tried the ignoredisk and bootloader options. I've included the kickstart file itself in the question as I'd left it out. The problem observed was that when the SAN was connected to the HBA cards the SAN partitions were addressed as /dev/sda through /dev/sdh and the internal RAID drive was assigned /dev/sdi. If the SAN was disconnected and installation performed the internal RAID drive was seen as /dev/sda as expected. While I got it to install while running as /dev/sdi GRUB was then screwed up upon reboot. – Jeremy Bouse Aug 27 '10 at 02:48
  • Ahh ok.. I understand now. So I think you were on the right track. I would change the ignoredisk line: ignoredisk --drive=*All drives except sdi* And bootloaderline: bootloader --location=mbr --driveorder=sdi That way GRUB gets installed on the mbr of what becomes the internal disk (sdi) In your config you're telling anaconda to ignore all the disks including the one that becomes the local disk (sdi) and to not ignore your LUN (sda). It has to do with the way your controller enumerates the drives so long as you don't have a special requirement that sda be internal disks you'll be fine –  Aug 27 '10 at 16:48
  • I think you can also get rid of the "ondisk" on each of your partitons.. hope this helps –  Aug 27 '10 at 16:49