Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 599119
Anaconda fails on ext3 partitions mounted as ext4
Last modified: 2011-10-17 15:45:33 EDT
Created attachment 419109 [details] Anaconda Crash Dump Description of problem: Anaconda crashes when it finds an ext3 partition mounted using the ext4 driver: Exception: fstab entry /dev/unbreakable/root is malformed: scanned format (ext3) differs from fstab format (ext4) However, doing so is valid and allows ext3 partitions to use ext4 performance improvements without breaking backwards compatibility: https://ext4.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Ext4_Howto#Converting_an_ext3_filesystem_to_ext4 Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): F13 How reproducible: Run preupgrade on a setup where an ext3 partition is mounted using the ext4 driver in fstab Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3. Actual results: Expected results: Additional info: Log from anaconda attached.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 577260 ***
This isn't a duplicate. The bug referred to seems to be a valid error caused by a broken fstab, whereas extX to extY is a valid configuration that should be supported (and was by previous preupgrades on the same system).
It's essentially the same - your fstab is "broken" in that the contents of the fstab file do not match what's on the disk.
The fstab is not broken. Having ext3 partitions mounted as ext4 is perfectly valid and actually recommended to gain performance improvements: https://ext4.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Ext4_Howto#Converting_an_ext3_filesystem_to_ext4 I've worked around it by reverting the partition to ext3, preupgrading and then changing it back to ext4.
Notice my conveniently placed quotes.
Yes, I got that. What I want to know is what the plan is to fix this bug?
This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora 14 development cycle. Changing version to '14'. More information and reason for this action is here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping
*** Bug 634959 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
(In reply to comment #0) > Anaconda crashes when it finds an ext3 partition mounted using the ext4 driver: > > Exception: fstab entry /dev/unbreakable/root is malformed: scanned format > (ext3) differs from fstab format (ext4) > > However, doing so is valid and allows ext3 partitions to use ext4 performance > improvements without breaking backwards compatibility: The set of things that people can do to their systems that are considered to be valid from one perspective or another is truly massive, and we make no effort to support everything that can possibly be done. You really need backwards compatibility with ext3 on your root filesystem? May I ask what for?
*** Bug 661733 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I ran into this with a Fedora 14 installation where I believe it mounted /boot as ext4 by default. Upgrading to the Fedora 15 alpha fails with this error now. Of course, changing /boot to be ext3 in /etc/fstab gets past it, but it will probably halt your average user in their tracks.
This will be possible without error in Fedora 16 (anaconda-16.21-1).