Bug 12354

Summary:	Advisory: Debian's current initramdisk scripts break with an ext4 root
Product:	File System	Reporter:	Jim Bray (jimsantelmo)
Component:	ext4	Assignee:	fs_ext4 (fs_ext4)
Status:	CLOSED CODE_FIX
Severity:	enhancement	CC:	hpa
Priority:	P1
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Kernel Version:	2.6.28	Subsystem:
Regression:	---	Bisected commit-id:
Attachments:	Patch to klibc to allow it to properly probe ext4/ext4dev filesystems

Description Jim Bray 2009-01-03 23:02:15 UTC

This is just a heads-up to hopefully save other people some time. I'm running 2.6.28 with debian/unstable, finally converted the root to ext4, and discovered that Debian with an initrd can't boot it because the initrd scripts apparently decide it is an ext3 filesystem with unsupported features. Not that they report this: instead you get an ENODEV message that had me convinced ext4 wasn't registering itself or some other such weirdness. Works fine if you use a "rootfstype=ext4" kernel boot parameter, or no initrd.

Comment 1 Jim Bray 2009-01-04 10:14:33 UTC

  I traced the problem thru the Debian initrd scripts to klibc/bin/fstype and have filed a Debian bug on it. If kernel-hackers are the ultimate upstream klibc source, please let me know and I'll refile it in other/klibc/kinit.

# /usr/lib/klibc/bin/fstype /dev/sda5 //a 100% made-from-scratch ext4 fs
FSTYPE=ext3
FSSIZE=12000649216

Comment 2 Theodore Tso 2009-01-04 11:14:08 UTC

I submitted a patch to klibc@zytor.com mailing list on Sat, 11 Oct 2008 10:54:44 -0400.  (Subject line: [PATCH] fstype: Fix ext4/ext4dev probing).

No one ever got back to me.  hpa?   Do you need me to resend?

Comment 3 Theodore Tso 2009-01-04 11:16:10 UTC

Created attachment 19648 [details]
Patch to klibc to allow it to properly probe ext4/ext4dev filesystems

Comment 4 H. Peter Anvin 2009-01-04 11:30:06 UTC

Applied, and a new klibc (1.5.15) has been pushed out.