Unable to capture image on NVME systems since 1.5.10

[DiegoP]

Hi,
i’ve used FOG 1.5.9 for years now, and recently i’ve updated to the more recent releases, initially 1.5.10.1798 and currently running 1.5.10.1870.
Since i’m on 1.5.10, i’m not able to capture images from systems using NVME’s as you can see from the snips attached.
I’ve also tried various version of fos and the issue is happening for both Windows and Linux installations. What it could be to cause this problem?
Thank you very much

[Tom Elliott]

@DiegoP I feel like we don’t have enough context.

We have many people using NVME drives, yours appears (from the lsblk output) to be a RAID mode?

Maybe that’s part of why you’re running into issues?

[DiegoP]

@Tom-Elliott said in Unable to capture image on NVME systems since 1.5.10:

Maybe that’s part of why you’re running into issues?

Hi Tom, after your hint i’ve revised the settings for the windows images and now the capture is working.
For the linux images i confirm the partitions contian part of a mdadm raid, back to the old fog versions, these images where captured without issues, now it seems tath the presence of mdadm won’t let the image capture start.
I’ve tried to set the image type to raw and that work, but is wery inefficient.
I’ve also tried to switch from partclone to partimage without success.
Thank you

[Tom Elliott]

@DiegoP I believe mdadm will still be allowed to work, but I think you’re supossed to use “mdraid=true” for a kernel argument. If this is not set, FOG won’t know to build the array. This would help explain why the disk couldn’t find a partition layout as well since it’s expecting to be part of an array (which then looks/acts as the disk you’re truly working with.

As for “partclone to partimage” I’m not sure I understand.

Fog moved FROM partimage -> partclone way back in the 1.0.0 days as partimage has been obsolete for quite some time now.

[DiegoP]

@Tom-Elliott
Hi!
Just to let you know that I’ve found a solution.
I’ve added

if ! grep -q 'mdraid=true' /proc/cmdline; then
    echo "AUTO -all" > /etc/mdadm.conf
    mkdir -p /etc/mdadm ; echo "AUTO -all" > /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf
    rm -f /lib/udev/rules.d/*md-raid* /etc/udev/rules.d/*md-raid* 2>/dev/null
    udevadm control --reload 2>/dev/null
    mdadm --stop --scan >/dev/null 2>&1
fi

to /images/dev/postinitscripts/fog.postinit and that prevent mdadm from interfeering with disk scan on precapture phase.
Thank you

[Tom Elliott]

@DiegoP Thanks, your workaround found the cause.

FOS installs mdadm’s udev rule, and that rule assembles every RAID member at boot. It ignored mdraid=true. The arrays then held nvme0n1p2/p3, so capture could not read the partitions.

FOS now assembles arrays only when mdraid=true is on the kernel command line. Without the flag, it leaves the member partitions alone. With the flag, nothing changes.

The fix is merged and ships in the next experimental FOS release. When that release is out, update your init, remove the postinit workaround, and capture again. Please tell us whether it works.