[SOLVED] Reusing SDA8 in RAID5? (I did read the tut)

[andjohn]

Hello All,
I'm loving the console, I think it's probably the most reliable piece of software of it's type I've used! So, thanks.

Basically, I'm having difficulty getting the instructions to work to copy over the technical shares to the new RAID5 and then including the SDA8 partition in the RAID. I get as fast as moving the technical shares, that works great. The problem is that if I change the type of SDA8, it borks everything up when I reboot. I really don't want to 'waste' a drive bay for just the system files. So, when I add it to the RAID5 array before rebooting it shows clean. mdadm is happy, everyone is happy. When I reboot, DMESG posts this at the end:

EXT3-fs error (device sda8): ext3_check_descriptors: Block bitmap for group 1920 not in group (block 264241152)!
EXT3-fs (sda8): error: group descriptors corrupted

That's the silly part, it's not even EXT3; it should be a part of the RAID! Now, mdadm doesn't know anything about the RAID anymore! Anyways, that's my only problem right now. Everything is awesome, when you're part of a RAID.

One thing I'm going to try next is using the verbose flag on anything mdadm does, so I can see. I'm thinking that when I add the SDA8 partition, I'm not waiting for a rebuild? Anyway, I'd love some help.
------------------------------------------
All I wish was for a GUI harddrive configuration manager that could use dis-similar sized hard drives like the stock. That's really the only downside of this OS. I LOVE IT so far, the addons are awesome, the normal linuxy stuff is awesome, just the hard drive configuration!

[Jocko]

Hi andjohn,

I don't understand well in what state is your NAS.

So do you move the technical share on the raid ? and how do you do that ? (by selecting the raid volume in the main setup menu with the option 'Move the technical shares on the new volume')

and post

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file -bs /dev/sda8
mdadm --detail /dev/md0
fdisk -l
gdisk -l /dev/sda  (and also with the other disks sdb,...)

[andjohn]

Hey Jocko,
Ya, I moved the technical shares with the menu. Here's the steps I followed:
1. Bring up the RAID on the other 3 disks with '1 missing'.
2. Reboot
3. GUI finds RAID volume correctly, mdadm shows it's clean but degraded from the missing member.
4. Move the technical shares and addin volume using the GUI.
5. Reboot
6. GUI shows the correct location of the shares on RD5-0
7. Change the file system type using gdisk for SDA8
8. Join it to the RAID, mdadm is still happy and shows clean
9. Reboot
10. MD0 disappears from mdadm --scan, GUI shows SDA8's size is reported in the information page but with no available space. RAID disappeared from the GUI.

I'll run the commands and report back.

UPDATE:
file -bs /dev/sda8 shows the following

Linux rev 1.0 ext3 filesystem data, UUID=hereismyuuid (needs journal recovery) (errors) (large files)

mdadm --detail /dev/md0 shows the following

mdadm: md device /dev/md0 does not appear to be active.

fdisk -l shows all of the disks have EFI GPT as the partition table

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gdisk -l /dev/sda shows this

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.5

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sda: 3907029168 sectors, 1.8 TiB Logical sector size: 512 bytes Disk identifier (GUID): D222E98B-B6A9-4DFA-8BEA-7C68C062DCBE
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 3907029134 Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries Total free space is 1953508062 sectors (931.5 GiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            4096         1052671   512.0 MiB   8300  Linux filesystem
   2         1052672         2101247   512.0 MiB   8300  Linux filesystem
   3         2101248         3149823   512.0 MiB   8200  Linux swap
   4         3149824         3166207   8.0 MiB     8300  Linux filesystem
   5         3166208         4739071   768.0 MiB   8300  Linux filesystem
   6         4739072         4755455   8.0 MiB     8300  Linux filesystem
   7         4755456         5804031   512.0 MiB   8300  Linux filesystem
   8         5804032      1953525134   928.7 GiB   FD00  Linux RAID

[Jocko]

I need some additional information :

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cat /boot.log

;

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mount

and

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cat /proc/mdstat

[Jocko]

So it seems mdadm failed to assemble md0.

So try to do it manually and see what happens :

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grep "ARRAY" /etc/mdadm.conf|awk '{print $2}'

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mdadm --assemble /dev/md0 --verbose

[andjohn]

start boot log
detect and set platform
5big2
UIMAGE-3142-NWSP2CL-8
5big2
mount dev/pts
update dev nodes
booting using sda1 root file system...
make dev node for buttons...
make dev node for tun device...
enable IP forwarding...
start buttons control daemon
device = 5big2
source = buttons-nwsp2
buttons-nwsp2 daemon started
Tue Dec 22 06:15:54 UTC 2015
create temporary passwd file
run udevstart to update dev nodes when necessary
inserting kernel modules:
create temporary group file
configure loopback network interface
setting reboot and standby
5big2
rebootd-nwsp2
5big2
standbyd-nwsp2
start fan
fan5big daemon started
starting php based setup routines step 1

* Starting udevd... [ OK ]
* Found XML database configuration file... [ OK ]
* Finishing restore RAID devices... [ OK ]
* Updating Disks database... [ OK ]
* Starting mount of volumes...
- Mounting volume Vol-A: [ Fail ]
* Finishing mount of volumes... [ Fail ]
* Generating Hosts File... [ OK ]
* Configuring System Hostname... [ OK ]
* Configuring LAN interface... [ OK ]
* Initializing Timezone... [ OK ]
* Starting web server... [ OK ]
* Starting mount of internal USB ...
* Finishing mount internal USB ... [ OK ]
* Configuring Disks... [ OK ]
* Configuring Samba... [ OK ]
* Configuring System Users...
Root password: use default password
Set users, linux and samba accounts [ OK ]
* Starting Fvdw-sl Discovery Daemon... [ OK ]
start rpcbind service
starting php based setup routines step 2
* Starting dropbear... [ OK ]
* Kill temporary dropbear... [ OK ]
starting php based setup routines step 3
* Starting daemon update Hosts File... [ OK ]
* Starting mount of remote shares...
* Finishing mount shares... [ OK ]
starting php based setup routines step banner


*** fvdw-sl NAS firmware
This is fvdw-sl version: fvdw-sl 16.1
built on: Oct 01 2015

LAN IP address: 192.168.1.14 (DHCP)

Port configuration:

LAN -> eth0
php based setup routines finished
web permission on resolv.conf
set device tuning for dms performance
LED settings
else loop1 finished
rcS finished
-------------------------------------------------------
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
/dev/root on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=continue,barrier=1,data=ordered)
none on /proc type proc (rw,relatime)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,relatime)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,relatime,mode=600)
/dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=continue,barrier=1,data=ordered)
none on /proc type proc (rw,relatime)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,relatime)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,relatime,mode=600)
/dev/sda5 on /rw_fs type ext3 (rw,noatime,errors=continue,barrier=1,data=ordered)
tmpfs on /rw_fs/tmp/usr/var type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=5000k)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw,relatime)
/dev/root on /lacie-boot type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=continue,barrier=1,data=ordered)
--------------------------------------------------------------
Personalities : [linear] [raid0] [raid1] [raid10] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4]
unused devices: <none>
--------------------------------------------------------------
nothing shows in the grep 'ARRAY' command
--------------------------------------------------------------
mdadm --assemble /dev/md0 --verbose
mdadm: /dev/md0 not identified in config file.
--------------------------------------------------------------
I ran this also:
root@fvdwsl-base:/ # mdadm --examine --verbose --scan
ARRAY /dev/md0 level=raid5 num-devices=4 UUID=709bdfb7:a154c569:05d4c01c:3130c529
spares=1 devices=/dev/sdd8,/dev/sdd,/dev/sdc8,/dev/sdc,/dev/sdb8,/dev/sda
--------------------------------------------------------------

I have no files on the NAS because I've wanted to work on this, so I can re-install. I've reinstalled a couple times but this is always the end result.

[Jocko]

Hi andjohn,

I think you made 2 errors :
- you did not save your raid in mdadm.conf file

nothing shows in the grep 'ARRAY' command
--------------------------------------------------------------
mdadm --assemble /dev/md0 --verbose
mdadm: /dev/md0 not identified in config file.

- you add sda in the raid instead of sda8 and also declare sd[dc] !!!!

So that means you do not follow fully the tuto where you should create a raid5 with 4 devices but at the first step declare sda8 as missing. Then after getting the raid and moving your data on the raid5, add sda8.

So the best way is to reset fully your raid and build directly a raid with 4 devices (you don't have a 5th disk ?):

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mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sda8
mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sdb8
mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sdc8
mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sdd8
mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sda
mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sdc
mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sdd

so if you run again your command (examine command), your should have no detected device now.

- I assume that you set fd type on each partition (sd[abcd]8), build again the raid with this command

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mdadm --create --verbose /dev/md0 --level=5 --raid-devices=4 /dev/sda8 /dev/sdb8 /dev/sdc8 /dev/sdd8

- save your raid conf

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cat /etc/mdadm.0 > /etc/mdadm.conf
mdadm --detail --scan >> /etc/mdadm.conf

- format the raid

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mke2fs -t ext3 -j -m 1 /dev/md0

- reboot the nas

[andjohn]

Hey Jocko,
Ya, I did write the config after all changes before rebooting but it doesn't matter. I ran your commands and it worked perfectly!! Thanks a lot! I'm in business!

:hail :applause :woohoo

Zeroing all of the superblocks and recreating is just the step that I couldn't figured out. I had researched about zeroing it but couldn't put it together. Thanks for teaching me :)