Trouble booting new Slack 13. LVM on Luks

BashTin · 10-20-2011, 10:23 PM

First thanks for those who helped me out on a related thread

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...drives-908866/

For the first time I am trying full disc encryption with Luks and LVM over that. I followed Alien Bobs crypt.txt but it will not boot.

The initrd obviously works and does its thing but then the system cannot mount.

The error I get back while booting is

Code:

4 logical volumes in volume group "slack13-group" now active.
mount: mounting /dev/slack13-group/root on /mnt failed: invalid argument.

When I built initrd with mkinitrd I chroot to /mnt as instructed in the crypt.txt. I do not really know what I am doing at this point but it seems that it is trying to mount /root on /mnt which must surely be wrong?

My the fstab looks like this

Code:

/dev/slack13-group/root /                reiserfs    defaults         1   1
/dev/slack13-group/home /home            reiserfs    defaults         1   2
/dev/slack13-group/usr /usr             reiserfs    defaults         1   2
/dev/sdb1        /boot            ext2        defaults         1   2
#/dev/cdrom      /mnt/cdrom       auto        noauto,owner,ro  0   0
/dev/fd0         /mnt/floppy      auto        noauto,owner     0   0
devpts           /dev/pts         devpts      gid=5,mode=620   0   0
proc             /proc            proc        defaults         0   0
tmpfs            /dev/shm         tmpfs       defaults         0   0

I've tried reinstalling a few times but the result is the same.

Ok, to the rescue someone, please.

BashTin.

titopoquito · 10-21-2011, 05:35 AM

The switch to /mnt is normal. If you take a look at the "init" script in your initrd-tree, you will see that the root partition, /proc and /sys are first mounted in /mnt, then as last command the init script switches there (like a chroot) and gives control to the root partitions init script I think.

My best guess is that you have some wrong argument in your mkinitrd line. Are you sure you have given the right filesystem type?

BashTin · 10-21-2011, 06:17 AM

ah yes, I think you are right. Was getting confused between root and boot partitions. boot is ext2 which is what I specified to mkinitrd but root is reiser. Will give it another shot, thanks.

Alien Bob · 10-21-2011, 07:19 AM

Next time, also show us the mkinitrd command you used to create the initrd image. As well as the relevant lilo.conf section.

Eric

BashTin · 10-21-2011, 09:29 AM

Thanks for the advice, just one more question. Without having to go through all the install (setup) procedure again how can I get the system mounted so I can mkinitrd again? I mean I can put in the install cd and get the command prompt, unlock the root partition and activate the lv's but then how should I proceed?

BashTin

titopoquito · 10-21-2011, 11:06 AM

Start with the Slackware CD. When you've mounted the root partition on /mnt, I am not sure if you also need

Code:

mount -o bind /proc /mnt/proc
mount -o bind /sys /mnt/sys

but you don't have any disadvantage of it. Then chroot to /mnt and try another mkinitrd line

BCarey · 10-21-2011, 12:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by titopoquito

Start with the Slackware CD. When you've mounted the root partition on /mnt, I am not sure if you also need

Code:

mount -o bind /proc /mnt/proc
mount -o bind /sys /mnt/sys

but you don't have any disadvantage of it. Then chroot to /mnt and try another mkinitrd line

Is it not necessary to mount the boot partition and the other partitions under /mnt?

Brian

titopoquito · 10-22-2011, 01:33 AM

It is necessary to mount your root Slackware partition under /mnt first, if you have a seperate boot partition, mount it too. then /proc and /sys, after that do the chroot

BashTin · 10-22-2011, 07:56 PM

Thanks guys, got it working. But have to confess had to go through the install process yet again. After I mounted everything and issued the chroot I got the message

Code:

chroot: can't execute '/bin/sh' no such file or directory

so rather than figure that just reinstalled it. As titopoquito said, I had used the wrong filesystem in my mkinitrd command. I has used the boot file system not the root one.

So Alien Bob, just goes to show you can write the clearest and most complete instructions on the planet and some people (me) will still manage to make a hash of it!!

BashTin