| 170 | | |
| 171 | | == AII v1 to v2 Migration == |
| 172 | | |
| 173 | | When migrating from AII v1 to v2, the AII configuration itself should not require many changes, as long as you are using AII-related variables, except for the declaration of Kickstart actions which replace former Kickstart template. The ''aii-update(8)'' man page provides complete information on what is needed now. |
| 174 | | |
| 175 | | == Important note == |
| 176 | | |
| 177 | | The model for file systems and block devices allows to use partition labels others than '''msdos'''. It is even possible not to use partition tables at all on non-system disks. However, Anaconda doesn't like this and will stop your installations if it finds disks with non-msdos labels. For this reason, AII will only create filesystems that are fully enclosed in msdos-labeled disks. This means the partition beneath a file system, all members of a given software RAID or whatever combination you can think of. Filesystems on other partition tables must be created after the node is installed, for instance with ncm-filesystems. |
| 178 | | |
| 179 | | If you install and miss any file systems on your Kickstart file, please check the labels on all your disks. |
| 180 | | |
| 181 | | On the other hand, file system definition is not backward compatible and must be edited as described before. The full description of the data structures and helper functions is available at [https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/FIOgroup/TsiCDBBlockDevices CERN wiki] You can also find some useful hints and additions at https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/ELFms/QuattorUpdateFSLayout. |
| 182 | | |
| | 171 | |
| | 172 | === Installation failure during %pre script === |
| | 173 | |
| | 174 | The so-called `%pre%` script is a script used early in the installation process by the standard RH/SL/CentOS installer (Anaconda). This script is created by Quattor to handle the disk partitioning based on the disk configuration described in the node profile. If the installer reports an error during this script (generally no reason is given), this means an error during the disk partitioning and the file system initialization. It is generally necessary to go to the alternate consoles to do the troubleshooting. |
| | 175 | |
| | 176 | 2 important causes for problems are: |
| | 177 | * Lack of `msdos` label: the model for file systems and block devices allows to use partition labels others than '''msdos'''. It is even possible not to use partition tables at all on non-system disks. However, Anaconda doesn't like this and will stop your installations if it finds disks with non-msdos labels. For this reason, AII will only create filesystems that are fully enclosed in msdos-labeled disks. This means the partition beneath a file system, all members of a given software RAID or whatever combination you can think of. Filesystems on other partition tables must be created after the node is installed, for instance with ncm-filesystems. Use the second alternate console to check the labels on your disk. |
| | 178 | * LVM volumes are not destroyed: when reinstalling a system which was previously installed with a LVM partition using the same disk partitionning, the old LVM information (which is on-disk) is reused and the logical volumes are not recreated. One possible workaround is to use the second alternate console to destroy the volume group or reformat the LVM partition as something different to clear the previous information. |
| | 245 | |
| | 246 | === Tweaking KS parameters for a specific Kickstart configuration === |
| | 247 | |
| | 248 | From time to time, Kickstart required parameters may change with either the introduction of new required options or the deprecation of some other options. This was for example the case in SL/RHEL6. |
| | 249 | |
| | 250 | This can be generally handled by creating an version-specific template for this OS version. If the tweaking applies to all minor versions of this major version, this is done by: |
| | 251 | * Going into the directory containing the AII KS plugin templates. In QWG templates, this is in `cfg/standard/quattor/aii/ks`. |
| | 252 | * Under this directory, create a directory for the OS major version, eg. `sl6`. |
| | 253 | * Put the necessary configuration in a template `config.tpl` of this directory. |
