From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040626 Firefox/0.8 Description of problem: Problem with kickstart (nfs) installation & ghost diskdump with compression Dear all, there seems to be a bug when installing a core fedora (2) installation via kickstart options. After having successfully installed fc2 (the files are from FC2.B redhat magazin) on a blank ide-hd via nfs (ibm-djas-220) and accessing the hd from dos/ghost network drives, trying to clone the whole disk, Ghost (ver.8) reports "read error failures" and stops. (I`ve tried several harddisks) The only solution to make ghost "working" is including the ghost -IA(L) switch, which copies all sectors of the drive but turns off any compression. The anaconda ks-file after installation: (options are valid for dvd & nfs install) ... #bootloader --location=mbr --append rhgb quiet #clearpart --all --initlabel #part /boot --fstype ext3 --size=128 --asprimary #part /vmware --fstype ext3 --size=7680 #part /transfer --fstype ext3 --size=3584 #part / --fstype ext3 --size=2048 #part /home --fstype ext3 --size=1024 #part /usr/local --fstype ext3 --size=1024 #part /var --fstype ext3 --size=1024 #part swap --size=512 ... ##also tested: bootloader --location=mbr --append rhgb quiet --lba32 When installing the system from the original dvd, chosing the same partitions, the same packages, the same bootloader options, ghost successfully clones the whole disk with compression (Z9) without reporting any errors. Sine I´ve noticed certain problems around fc2 with its diskdrive geometry (C/H/S) affecting dual boot systems, I´ve tried some ot the offered solutions without any success (...sfdisk --no-reread -H255 /dev/hda). Meanwhile, I´ve changed varios BIOS settings, concerning the hd-params: The manufactors´ hd-disklabel reports: Cyl 16383, Hds 16, Sec 63 The bios reports (auto): Cyl 17475, Hds 15, Sec 63 Changed the C/H/S params to user and took the hd-disklabel settings.. LBA is turned on/off.. "Playing" with auto/user defined bios settings seem to make no difference at all. The linux systems always boots as expected but again and again I´m entering the same ghost error messages as mentioned above! Even "linux ks=nfs:<ip server>:/<folder>/ks-test.cfg hda=17475,15,63 or whatever is put after the hda options doesn´t change anything. Is this a known bug in FC2? In RH9 the nfs kickstart installation and ghost are working without any problems. Kind regards, Wolfgang Schleicher Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): kernel-2.6.6-1.435.2.1 (i686) How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: Installation of fedora core (2) system via kickstart nfs (ca. 1.4GB data) on various disks with different bootloader options and partitions tables! Actual Results: Trying to clone the entire disk with ghost and enabled compression, always entering the same ghost read-failure messages! Expected Results: Succesfully cloning the disk with ghost and enabled compression as it is actually working with RH9. Additional info:
Unfortunately, this is a problem with ghost and can't be debugged by us as we don't have the source to it. There are new features available for ext3 in the 2.6 kernel that they probably don't support/understand.
Maybe there´s must be a misunderstanding. As I tried to explain before ghost works perfectly if the fedora core 2 installation is done from the fc2 dvd. Symantec´s diskclone just "fails", if the (identic) fedora core 2 installation is done by the kickstart-method. The result is always reproduceable: ghost is "Checking directory structures...", "Creating image with compression..." and then, just after a few seconds, (you can hear the noise while ghost is trying to access the disk) aborts with the error messages as desribed before. The kickstart´s nfs sourcefiles have been copied from the fc2 dvd. So the fedora install-program (or whatever) must be working different if the installation is started with the kickstart-method! There can be no doubt that in this case symantec´s ghost can´t be blamed for. (officially, ghost 8 supports ext3 linux filesystems) Kind regards, Wolfgang Schleicher