[SOLVED] Zentyal 4 will not boot on a HP Microserver Gen8, but Ubuntu will.

[acesuares]

 I installed Zentyal on a HP Microserver Gen8, and afer install it won't boot from the first disk (HP calls it 'C:', how funny).

I tried several times, and also booted with rescue disk, the install seems to be okay it just doesnt' boot.

Then I installed Ubuntu 14.04 AMD64 and it booted right away.

So, apparentley there is some difference between de Zentyal 4.0 bootloader and the one from Ubuntu.

[acesuares]

Correction: Ubuntu 14.04 SERVER versions also doesn't want to boot. Only the desktop version of Ubuntu, boots.

[acesuares]

Apparently, this had to do with the RAID configuration.

I installed Zentyal in Expert mode, made 4 primary partitions on both disks:
100 GB / ext4
4 GB swap
500 GB /home ext4
390 GB /data ext4

While Zentyal installed correctly, after the first reboot, the server skipped booting from the harddisks.

I tried rescue disk and reinstall GRUB, (on /dev/sda and /dev/sdb), didn't work.

Then I installed Ubuntu 14.04 desktop amd64 over it, using guided installation. It booted fine.

Then I donwloaded Ubuntu 14.04 server amd64, and installed the same partions as above, and it installed, but didn't boot!

After that a lot of problems, for instance, the next try at installing zentyal on the already existing mdadm partitions didn't work, because it activated the raid devices it found (autodetect). This resulted in an error 'can not install busybox' (something similar to this error: http://serverfault.com/questions/512225/installation-of-64-bit-ubuntu-13-04-server-fails-with-unable-to-install-busybox

Then even more problems, as I tried to install the ubuntu desktop again - using guided partitioning - filesystem can not be created on /dev/sda5 (or something).

This got worse and worse, until in the end I did a rescue disk and dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=32768 (and for sdb too).

Only after I totally erased both disks, I could then install Zentyal 4 (but not in expert mode), and it installed perfectly and booted too.

But now I still don't have software raid on the server, so the next try will be to try the expert mode again, and use the same partitions as above, to see if it will work this time.

The system should be able to boot from a 99 GB root disk (including /boot) that is RAID-1 and ext4?

I don't think there is the need to make a /boot partition without raid and ext2?

Grub didn't even load, so I don't think it's a problem with /boot...

[acesuares]

So, after installing Zentyal succefully as 'non-expert', I know am reinstalling it in expert mode. At some point it tells me that the installer has detected mounted partition on /dev/sda.

Opening a terminal with 'alt-f2' and looking at df, it seems that /dev/sda1 is mounted on /media.

The installer ask to try and umount it, and I choose YES.

I then go to the 'manual' partition option, and:
- delete /dev/sda1
- delete the swap partition on /dev/sda
- create 4 new primary partitions: 100GB, 4GB, 500GB, 396GB, in that order, and mark them all as physical disk for RAID.
- create a new partition tabel on /dev/sdb, and then create exactly the same partitions as on /dev/sda

Then I go to configure RAID, and the installer writes the partitions to disk before it lets me create MD devices.

I strat to create the first MD device, RAID1, all default options, and get a list of devices. I want to use /dev/sda1 and /dev/sdb1, but /dev/sdb1 is not in the list! (/dev/sda1234 are, and /dev/sdb234 too)

What happened? A quick peek at the terminal tells me that there are 3 block device (with blkid)
/dev/sdc1 (the usb stick)
/dev/sda1 (formatted as ext4, from the previoius install !!!!!)
/dev/sdb1 (TYPE=linux_raid_member).

Remember, that disk had no partition tabel (and i wiped it with dd first!)

cat /proc/mdstat indeed tells me that there is one md device:
md127 inactive sdb1([1](S)

soooooooooooooooooo.... the partitioner/installer/os picked up a partition that once upon a time was created as linux raid autodetect!

(that was happening to me various times yesterday, before I decided to wipe the disk with dd... which aparantely not helped, maybe some superblockl laying around? Can't bend my head around this one!!!

So, i use the installer option to delete this device, and after that, create the 4 raid devices, now /dev/sdb1 is in the list.

The next step is assignng these drives.

So, I assign Raid device #1 (99.9GB, 512 B unusable) to ext4, mount point /
(all the devices have 512 B unusable)
#2 4GB swap area
#3 499.9 GB /home, reserved area 0%
#4 396.1 GB /data, reserved area 0%

This is how I've done it hundreds of times :-)

After 'finish, write to disk', it all seems find, and I get asked if I want to do without X, no, I want X, and then 'installing the system....'
and low and behold! The install succeeded! (In previous tries, it gave the busybox error).

When all is done, I remove the usb stick while it's rebooting, and ... it skips booting from the harddrive, and goes straight in to network booting.


To describe the process followed until now:

1. install Zentyal 4 in expert mode with software raid, all is well, but it doesn't boot from harddisk.
2. try several other installs, as in Ubuntu desktop/guided (works well), Ubuntu server (doesn't boot),
3. try more installs, but get thwarted by either 'this partitions is already mounted', 'ext4 filesystem creation failed' or 'busybox can not be installed'
4. wipe disks
5. finally (after 18 tries, I kid you not) back at sqaure 1.

[acesuares]

Some on irc #grub told met to use the bootinfo script, I did that, this is the result: http://pastebin.com/c0Tv74BR

[Progressed]

I have it installed on a microserver, but installed esxi 5.5. I think its a little overkill to have zentyall on a dedecated host (even tough its a microserver).

[Ambriador]

Do you find and answer or need still help?

[plexxus]

i installed a plain ubuntu 14.10 and then fetched zentyal from repo. had not those problems. maybe that works better than that zentyal-iso.

[Lueghi]

I installed the zentyal-iso from a stick to a stick with no problems on the HP Microserver. The only small problems were sitting in front of .... .

[acesuares]

I still need help. The zentyal install goes perfectly when installing on only one disk; but it goes wrong when configuring the disks as RAID-1. Then it totally skips grub, as if it was never on the MBR.

So, Installing Zentyal in 'standard' mode (just day YES to everything) results in a bootable machine; Going the 'expert' route and configuring the disks as RAID-1, results in unbootable server, in so far that not even GRUB is loaded.

I wish someone had some magic here.

[acesuares]

Installing Ubuntu with Raid-1 on this machine also does not even see grub. I am so flabbergasted.
Is there some limitation as to using ext4?

[acesuares]

Even a 10G ext2 boot partition didn't do it....

[acesuares]

For some reason, /dev/sdb1 was marked as 'active' (or 'bootable'), but /dev/sda1 was NOT. This caused the BIOS to skip booting from the first disk.

I am not clear why this happened, but at least this problem seems to be tackled now.