When I try to boot up on 9.4 (Seafoam Ocelot) it tells me that /dev/mapper/almalinux-home is not present.
When I boot up on 9.3 (Shamrock Pampas Cat) it is there.
This issue is still preventing me from using 9.4, any ideas what’s going on:
On 9.3 I get these mapper volumes:
rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Jul 7 12:16 almalinux-home → …/dm-2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Jul 7 12:16 almalinux-root → …/dm-0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Jul 7 12:16 almalinux-swap → …/dm-1
On 9.4 I get a timeout on almalinux-home and a failed boot-up, and that partition doesn’t show if I switch to emergency mode.
This is on a Lenovo 90T2 desktop server.
I have the exact same issue. Only happening with 9.4.
almalinux-home is just gone.
I’m relieved to know I"m not the only one with this, but I can’t move up from 9.3 until this is fixed.
Had the same pbm.
You may have some luck by removing /etc/lvm/devices/system.devices as i did.
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Do I do this in maintenance mode on 9.4?
Sounds a bit risky to me, if it doesn’t solve the problem on 9.4 will I still be able to boot up 9.3?
Yes in maintenance mode.
Yes i was still able to boot in my case 9.2
I’ve NOT rm the file but moved it (mv from etc to backup) AND i had a recovery usb key handy.
Does this also happen after a fresh install?
The only problem I had with Alma and mount point was that using /dev/sda naming is not stable. But totally different from your problem.
To my knowledge selecting a different os version at boot does not change mount points. Anything other info in the logs or kernel messages.
Bootloader loads a kernel and an initramfs image made for that kernel. It also passes some command-line parameters to the kernel. The initramfs image is a filesystem with files. These include drivers that are needed during early boot.
The default AlmaLinux installation creates three LVM logical volumes, for /, /home, and swap. In order to boot, the kernel must assemble the LVM (with instructions and driver from command-line parameters and initramfs). Otherwise it cannot mount the / nor other filesystems.
The instructions (also in /etc/fstab) refer to LVs with
/dev/mapper/almalinux_${hostname}-{lvname}
The /dev/mapper/has those symlinks once LVM LVs are active.
Bottomline is that a new kernel with a new initramfs can lack the necessary instructions from the initramfs that activation of LVM requires. That explains difference between new and old kernel – one does not see LV, while the other does.
The question is, what did go “wrong” during the generation of the initramfs image?
@jlehtone That is a clear description of the process. Thank I am learning something new. Is this also documented somewhere?
If the generation of the initramfs is a suspect than comparing log files from an working and a not working update could be helpful.