Bug 1636550

Summary:	s390x: add "--cdl" parameter to "clearpart" kickstart command
Product:	[Retired] Beaker	Reporter:	Jan Stodola <jstodola>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Martin Styk <mastyk>
Status:	CLOSED NEXTRELEASE	QA Contact:	Christopher Beer <cbeer>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	25
Target Milestone:	26.2
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	s390x
OS:	Linux
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Last Closed:	2018-11-13 14:47:15 UTC	Type:	Bug
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oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Jan Stodola 2018-10-05 16:16:26 UTC

Description of problem:
To increase the reliability of installations on s390x, Beaker should add the "--cdl" parameter to the "clearpart" kickstart command for s390x systems.

This parameter formats LDL (Linux Disk Layout) DASD disks with CDL (Compatible Disk Layout). LDL DASDs are not supported during installation, since they only allow to have one partition. CDL DASDs can have up to three partitions and are supported during installation.
Anaconda doesn't allow to use LDL DASDs during manual installation, however it allows them to be used during kickstart installation. This can lead to aborted installations when trying to create more than one partition on an LDL DASD.
LDL DASDs will not be allowed to be used during kickstart installations in the future releases of RHEL (see bug 1636525 and bug 1635825) and reformat of LDL DASDs to CDL will be required. Anaconda can reformat LDL DASDs if the --cdl clearpart option is present in the kickstart file.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Beaker 25.6

How reproducible:
always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. schedule an s390x installation in Beaker
2. check the created kickstart file

Actual results:
clearpart kickstart command without the --cdl option:
clearpart --all --initlabel

Expected results:
clearpart kickstart command with the --cdl option:
clearpart --all --initlabel --cdl

Additional info:
The --cdl option is supported since RHEL-6.7 (bug 1182624) and since RHEL-7.3 (bug 1232849). This option must not be included for older releases.

Comment 4 Dan Callaghan 2018-11-07 07:25:46 UTC

I assume this --cdl option is only valid for S/390 and should not appear for any other arches.

Do we want the option to be present from RHEL7.6+ and RHEL8.0+ only (conservative)? Or do we want it to be present from RHEL7.3+ and RHEL6.7+ and RHEL8+?

Comment 5 Jan Stodola 2018-11-07 12:03:53 UTC

Yes, this option only applies to s390x and should not be used anywhere else.

AFAIK we are not seeing many aborted jobs on older releases because of LDL disks being used during installation.
Let's apply this change on RHEL7.6+ and RHEL8.0+ only and keep older distros unchanged to avoid possible regressions.

Comment 6 Martin Styk 2018-11-13 12:42:31 UTC

https://gerrit.beaker-project.org/#/c/beaker/+/6327/

Comment 7 Martin Styk 2018-11-13 14:47:15 UTC

"--cdl" parameter was added to kickstart for "clearpart" command.
This change is only applicable for s390x arch and RHEL7.6+/RHEL8.0+.