Bug 80203

Summary:	need more initrd.img free space for LVM install
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Public Beta	Reporter:	Alexandre Oliva <aoliva>
Component:	anaconda	Assignee:	Jeremy Katz <katzj>
Status:	CLOSED RAWHIDE	QA Contact:	Mike McLean <mikem>
Severity:	high	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	phoebe	CC:	chris.ricker, k.georgiou
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	i386
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2003-02-20 06:00:12 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On:
Bug Blocks:	79579

Description Alexandre Oliva 2002-12-22 08:58:09 UTC

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Description of problem:
vgscan can create very large files in /etc/lvmtab.d and /etc/lvmconf.  The 700Kb
that are free when the installer starts aren't quite enough for a 4 PV 227.36GB
volume group configuration file, that takes more than 1 MB.  Even for a smaller
2 PV 64 GB volume group, if you happen to run vgscan by hand in the shell and
then tweak some partitions, you'll probably fill in the root filesystem of the
installer generating very odd crashes in anaconda (IO exceptions for disk full),
or RPM errors while installing packages.

I've verified that adding more 5MB of /dev/zero to the uncompressed initrd.img
adds about 1 Kb to the compressed initrd file.  Can we afford to take up more 5
MB of memory with a larger initrd.img?

The alternative I came up with to get the installer to not crash was to create
an ext2 filesystem in /dev/ram, copy the contents of /etc into it then remount
it atop /etc (or just bind /etc to it).

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


How reproducible:
Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Start the installer on a pre-installed, relatively large LVM-enabled system
2.Go to the shell virtual terminal and run df -k /
3.Proceed to the disk druid screen

Actual Results:  The free space in / decreases significantly.  du -k /etc shows
a lot of it is taken by /etc/lvmtab.d and /etc/lvmconf.

Expected Results:  We shouldn't get close to no free space in /

Additional info:

Removing drivers from /tmp after they're loaded helps make room for the lvm
config files, but it's not quite enough for the installation to complete, not
even in the smaller system.  On the larger system, the system won't even
recognize the pre-installed system and the existing volume group.

Comment 1 Alexandre Oliva 2003-01-21 18:13:40 UTC

Still present in phoebe 2.

Comment 2 Jeremy Katz 2003-02-11 07:22:12 UTC

Added 2 megs for now.  Hope to come up with something better before the final
release, but if not, we have a stopgap.

Comment 3 Alexandre Oliva 2003-02-19 04:48:40 UTC

The additional 2MB seem to have been enough, even for an install on machines
with a 230GB VG with 4MB extents and 300GB VG with 8MB extents.

Comment 4 Jeremy Katz 2003-02-20 06:00:12 UTC

This is going to have to be good enough for now.