You are not logged in.

#1 2014-04-16 12:26:40

audiomuze
Member
Registered: 2014-03-31
Posts: 103

[SORTED] Persistent USB installation - what have I overlooked?

I've read Beginners' and Installation guides as well as Partitioning guide and made some progress installing Arch, but have hit a snag I don't seem to be able to resolve.  The target USB is partitioned as follows:
1 4MiB      EF02 Bios boot partition Attribute flags - none
2 300MiB  8300   Linux filesystem   Attribute flags - 4
3 14.1GiB 8300   Linux filesystem  Attribute flags - None

I mounted dev/sdb3 into /mnt and /dev/sdb2 into /mnt/boot
then ran:
arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
syslinux-install_update -i -a -m
edited syslinux.cfg and changed APPEND root= to point to /dev/sda3 (i.e. what will on reboot with the target USB be / )

after doing that and rebooting with the target USB installed in the machine I get the following during boot

[ ] a start job is running for dev.sdb2.device (xxs     / 1min 30s)

after the 90s passes it times out then reports:
Dependency failed for /boot
Dependency failed for local filesystems
Dependency failed for File System Check on /dev/sdb2


What have I missed?

Last edited by audiomuze (2014-04-16 17:48:01)


Linux user #338966

Offline

#2 2014-04-16 13:35:50

KairiTech
Member
From: Toronto, Canada
Registered: 2011-06-04
Posts: 275

Re: [SORTED] Persistent USB installation - what have I overlooked?

Did you exit the chroot before you rebooted? Did you sync also?

Offline

#3 2014-04-16 14:51:01

audiomuze
Member
Registered: 2014-03-31
Posts: 103

Re: [SORTED] Persistent USB installation - what have I overlooked?

I didn't sync, but you cannot issue a reboot from inside chroot, so I definitely exited chroot. 

Shall I reattempt the entire process?


Linux user #338966

Offline

#4 2014-04-16 14:56:49

Scimmia
Fellow
Registered: 2012-09-01
Posts: 11,466

Re: [SORTED] Persistent USB installation - what have I overlooked?

Are you sure that the SDXx names don't change when you boot from USB? That's why UUIDs or Labels are a good idea.

Offline

#5 2014-04-16 15:03:00

audiomuze
Member
Registered: 2014-03-31
Posts: 103

Re: [SORTED] Persistent USB installation - what have I overlooked?

No idea whether they change or not.  The USB flashdrive I install from is naturally /dev/sda, the target is installed after booting Arch's install image.  Target becomes /dev/sdb, following partitioning it's sdb1,2,3 as above.  Then when booting from it it has to revert to /dev/sda sda1,2,3 because there are no other drives in the PC at this stage.

Are my partition tables correct to meet the requirements to boot via BIOS using GPT?


Linux user #338966

Offline

#6 2014-04-16 15:13:58

Slithery
Administrator
From: Norfolk, UK
Registered: 2013-12-01
Posts: 5,776

Re: [SORTED] Persistent USB installation - what have I overlooked?

audiomuze wrote:

Are my partition tables correct to meet the requirements to boot via BIOS using GPT?

Not really. You only need the BIOS partition if you are using grub.

Whenever I do a USB installation I just use one partition for everything, there's really no need for a seperate /boot.

Also +1 for using UUID's to specify your partitions in both the syslinux config and your fstab, there is no guarantee what drive name your USB will have, especially if you are using it on multiple machines.

Last edited by Slithery (2014-04-16 15:15:28)


No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryan
Closing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan

aur - dotfiles

Offline

#7 2014-04-16 15:23:47

audiomuze
Member
Registered: 2014-03-31
Posts: 103

Re: [SORTED] Persistent USB installation - what have I overlooked?

@ slithery, so you're suggesting I re-partition the target flashdrive and make a single GPT ext4 formatted partition.  Does it need any specific flags set?

Last edited by audiomuze (2014-04-16 15:24:18)


Linux user #338966

Offline

#8 2014-04-16 15:37:57

audiomuze
Member
Registered: 2014-03-31
Posts: 103

Re: [SORTED] Persistent USB installation - what have I overlooked?

Ok, I've killed the partitions, created a single partition and am now reinstalling Arch

Last edited by audiomuze (2014-04-16 15:45:21)


Linux user #338966

Offline

#9 2014-04-16 16:24:58

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,449
Website

Re: [SORTED] Persistent USB installation - what have I overlooked?

One partition will help, as will UUIDs.  But the problem seems pretty clear to me: your bootloader was set up to call the disk as sda, your fstab was set up to call it sdb.  Which one would be correct on any given boot would be a toss up - but they'd never *both* work.  It seems the usb was detected as sda, so your bootloader was successful, but then systemd checked for sdb as it was instructed to by your fstab, and of course there was no sdb to be found.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

Offline

#10 2014-04-16 16:37:44

audiomuze
Member
Registered: 2014-03-31
Posts: 103

Re: [SORTED] Persistent USB installation - what have I overlooked?

Thanks.  I've solved it by re-partitioning with a single partition and following the beginners' guide. From here it should be plain sailing.


Linux user #338966

Offline

#11 2014-04-16 16:56:40

audiomuze
Member
Registered: 2014-03-31
Posts: 103

Re: [SORTED] Persistent USB installation - what have I overlooked?

audiomuze wrote:

Thanks.  I've solved it by re-partitioning with a single partition and following the beginners' guide. From here it should be plain sailing.

Afraid that was wishful thinking.  Without any other drives attached the system boots without issue.

As soon as I attache the 5x3TB drives and fire up I get the same type of issue - it's waiting for /dev/sda1

Looking at /etc/fstab it does in fact reference the UUID of the USB flashdrive the Microserver's booting from.

Where to look now?


Linux user #338966

Offline

#12 2014-04-16 17:11:44

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,449
Website

Re: [SORTED] Persistent USB installation - what have I overlooked?

And did you use UUID's for the boot loader.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

Offline

#13 2014-04-16 17:20:39

audiomuze
Member
Registered: 2014-03-31
Posts: 103

Re: [SORTED] Persistent USB installation - what have I overlooked?

Trilby wrote:

And did you use UUID's for the boot loader.

Doh! Forgive me, it's been a long day and I blindly followed the damned Beginner's guide rather than think about what I'm doing.

I'm guessing the way to resolve is to boot without the drives and edit  /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg to refer to the UUID of the USB flashdrive.

Damn, it sure would be easier if you could ssh into the liveboot session and at least have some copy and paste capability when installing.  Guess ssh should work now the install is completed


Linux user #338966

Offline

#14 2014-04-16 17:39:02

audiomuze
Member
Registered: 2014-03-31
Posts: 103

Re: [SORTED] Persistent USB installation - what have I overlooked?

Great, now I can't ssh into the box.  This is fast becoming a journey in frustration working at the command line with no ability to copy and paste things like UUID's.

Anything special required to be able to login to arch via ssh?  I've enabled root login for the moment.


Linux user #338966

Offline

#15 2014-04-16 17:47:40

audiomuze
Member
Registered: 2014-03-31
Posts: 103

Re: [SORTED] Persistent USB installation - what have I overlooked?

Sorted, I resorted to editing /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg on another PC after  using cat >> to add fstab contents to syslinux.cfg


Linux user #338966

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB