Bug 589886 - guestfish part-list and part-get/set-bootable cmd do not support extented partitions
Summary: guestfish part-list and part-get/set-bootable cmd do not support extented pa...
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG
Alias: None
Product: Virtualization Tools
Classification: Community
Component: libguestfs
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
low
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Richard W.M. Jones
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2010-05-07 08:03 UTC by Pengzhen Cao
Modified: 2010-05-10 04:28 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2010-05-10 02:18:54 UTC
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Pengzhen Cao 2010-05-07 08:03:39 UTC
Description of problem:
part-list

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
fc-12-1.2.3, latest git version 1.3.9

How reproducible:
100%

Steps to Reproduce:
1. create an empty image with dd or qemu-img
2. run guestfish ,add the image, partition the image to "vda1 vda2 vda3<vda4, vda5> with sfdisk cmd, where vda1,vda2 are primary, vda3 is extented, vda4,vda5 are logical partition
3. run part-list, part-set-bootable,part-get-bootable
  
Actual results:
cmd not work, Error: Can't have overlapping partitions.                                 

Expected results:
cmd should work

Additional info:
logs:

><fs> part-init /dev/vda mbr
><fs> sfdisk /dev/vda 0 0 0 '0,100,83  101,100,83 201,200,5 202,50,83'
><fs> sfdisk-l /dev/vda

Disk /dev/vda: 1015 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors/track
Units = cylinders of 516096 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
/dev/vda1          0+     99     100-     50399+  83  Linux
/dev/vda2        101     200     100      50400   83  Linux
/dev/vda3        201     400     200     100800    5  Extended
/dev/vda4        202     251      50      25200   83  Linux

><fs> part-list /dev/vda
Error: Invalid partition table on /dev/vda -- wrong signature 0.          

><fs> sfdisk /dev/vda 0 0 0 '0,100,83  101,100,83 201,200,5 202,50,83 252,50,83' 
><fs> part-list /dev/vda
Error: Can't have overlapping partitions.                                 

><fs> sfdisk-l /dev/vda

Disk /dev/vda: 1015 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors/track
Units = cylinders of 516096 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
/dev/vda1          0+     99     100-     50399+  83  Linux
/dev/vda2        101     200     100      50400   83  Linux
/dev/vda3        201     400     200     100800    5  Extended
/dev/vda4        202     251      50      25200   83  Linux
/dev/vda5        252     301      50      25200   83  Linux


><fs> part-get-bootable /dev/vda 1
Error: Can't have overlapping partitions.                                 

><fs> part-set-bootable /dev/vda 1 1
libguestfs: error: part_set_bootable: do_part_set_bootable: parted: /dev/vda: Error: Can't have overlapping partitions.

Comment 1 Richard W.M. Jones 2010-05-07 08:42:18 UTC
CC-ing Jim who might have a better idea about this.

Comment 2 Richard W.M. Jones 2010-05-07 14:04:53 UTC
This makes my head hurt slightly, but I think parted is correct.
Although sfdisk has allowed you to create a partition table layout,
the layout is really incorrect.  Let me explain.

Linux refers to the four fixed primary partitions in the MBR format[1]
as /dev/vda1, /dev/vda2, /dev/vda3 and /dev/vda4.  These fixed
primary partitions must not be overlapping.

However one or more may be marked as an extended partition
(type 5) which means it's a placeholder for logical partitions.  Linux
refers to logical partitions starting with /dev/vda5 and up.

So this is your second layout:
   Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
/dev/vda1          0+     99     100-     50399+  83  Linux
/dev/vda2        101     200     100      50400   83  Linux
/dev/vda3        201     400     200     100800    5  Extended
/dev/vda4        202     251      50      25200   83  Linux
/dev/vda5        252     301      50      25200   83  Linux

This is wrong because primary partitions /dev/vda3 and /dev/vda4
are overlapping.  /dev/vda4 is *not* a logical partition!

With sfdisk you can get a correct layout with this sequence of
commands:

><fs> sparse /tmp/test.img 1G
><fs> run
><fs> sfdisk /dev/vda 0 0 0 '0,100,83 101,100,83 201,200,5 0,0,0 202,50,83 252,50,83'
><fs> sfdisk-l /dev/vda

Disk /dev/vda: 2080 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors/track
Units = cylinders of 516096 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
/dev/vda1          0+     99     100-     50399+  83  Linux
/dev/vda2        101     200     100      50400   83  Linux
/dev/vda3        201     400     200     100800    5  Extended
/dev/vda4          0       -       0          0    0  Empty
/dev/vda5        202     251      50      25200   83  Linux
/dev/vda6        252+    301      50-     25199+  83  Linux

And you will see that the part-* commands work correctly:

><fs> part-list /dev/vda
[0] = {
  part_num: 1
  part_start: 512
  part_end: 51609599
  part_size: 51609088
}
[1] = {
  part_num: 2
  part_start: 52125696
  part_end: 103735295
  part_size: 51609600
}
[2] = {
  part_num: 3
  part_start: 103735296
  part_end: 206954495
  part_size: 103219200
}
[3] = {
  part_num: 5
  part_start: 104251392
  part_end: 130056191
  part_size: 25804800
}
[4] = {
  part_num: 6
  part_start: 130056704
  part_end: 155860991
  part_size: 25804288
}

So I think this is NOTABUG.  Although we let you do stuff with sfdisk
to create invalid partition tables, this is basically outside our control,
and possibly there is even some use for these invalid partition tables.

[1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Master_boot_record

Comment 3 Pengzhen Cao 2010-05-10 02:18:20 UTC
OK, I have tried with a real example. 
Install a fc12 system with a 10G raw image in kvm, then launch that img with guestyfish. This time part-* cmd could  work.

But there is a problem that we can not create this kind of partition layout with sfdisk. And there is one cylinder waste between partitions (0-99 to 101~200, 2 cylinders, 101~200 to 201~400, 1 cylinder). Is this the limit of sfdisk cmd?



><fs> sfdisk-l /dev/vda

Disk /dev/vda: 20805 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors/track
Units = cylinders of 516096 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
/dev/vda1   *      0+    203-    204-    102400   83  Linux
/dev/vda2        203+  10361-  10159-   5120000   83  Linux
/dev/vda3      10361+  14425-   4064-   2048000   83  Linux
/dev/vda4      14439+  20798-   6360-   3204967+   5  Extended
/dev/vda5      14439+  18502-   4064-   2048000   83  Linux
/dev/vda6      18502+  20796-   2294-   1156095+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

><fs> part-list 
part-list should have 1 parameter(s)
type 'help part-list' for help on part-list
><fs> part-list /dev/vda
[0] = {
  part_num: 1
  part_start: 32256
  part_end: 104889855
  part_size: 104857600
}
[1] = {
  part_num: 2
  part_start: 104889856
  part_end: 5347769855
  part_size: 5242880000
}
[2] = {
  part_num: 3
  part_start: 5347769856
  part_end: 7444921855
  part_size: 2097152000
}
[3] = {
  part_num: 4
  part_start: 7452103680
  part_end: 10733990399
  part_size: 3281886720
}
[4] = {
  part_num: 5
  part_start: 7452135936
  part_end: 9549287935
  part_size: 2097152000
}
[5] = {
  part_num: 6
  part_start: 9549288448
  part_end: 10733130239
  part_size: 1183841792
}

Comment 4 Pengzhen Cao 2010-05-10 02:19:26 UTC
closed this bug per comment 2,3

Comment 5 Jim Meyering 2010-05-10 04:28:40 UTC
in response to your comment #3, there must be at least one sector (kernel and newer parted require 2 sectors) in the extended partition before the first logical partition.  Since tools prefer to cylinder-align (for performance), that accounts for what appears to be a wasted cylinder before the first logical partition.  Regarding the two cylinders left between partition 1 and 2, I don't know.  Alignment perhaps?

These days, I often make a point of using manually-chosen 1MiB-aligned partition-start-sector numbers with GNU parted when creating partition tables.  Then, alignment options don't even come into play.


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