Bryn M. Reeves wrote: > On Fri, 2009-03-06 at 12:22 +1300, Paul Ward wrote: > >> # ls /boot >> ls: reading directory /boot: Input/output error >> > > What's in dmesg at this time? > > >> I have been told that the disks use multipath but I have no experience >> of this to date. >> I know the disks are on a SAN but as yet have not been able to locate >> them using the IBM SAN manager. >> >> > > >> Linux version 2.6.18-53.1.21.el5PAE >> > > So, RHEL5.1? > > >> (brewbuilder@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) (gcc version 4.1.2 20070626 >> (Red Hat 4.1.2-14)) #1 SMP Wed May 7 08:56:33 EDT 2008 >> > > >> Vendor: IBM Model: 1814 FAStT Rev: 0916 >> Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 >> > > So it's an IBM FAStT SAN? These are active/passive storage arrays that > require use of a multipath hardware handler to properly manage switching > between the active and passive paths and preventing I/O being sent to a > controller that cannot handler it. > > The I/O errors that you see are a result of things trying to access the > passive paths (e.g. partition scanning, lvm label scanning, udev/hal > probes etc.). > > RHEL5.1 included the old device-mapper hardware handlers. These will > only take effect once multipath has configured the devices and only > handle path switching in the event of a path failure (i.e. you'll still > see I/O errors if something tries to access one of the underlying paths > directly rather than via the multipath device map). > > RHEL5.3 introduces the scsi device handler framework as a replacement > for the device-mapper hardware handlers (this appeared upstream in > 2.6.26). > > Whether you decide to update or not it's probably worth carefully > checking the current multipath configuration on the system as this is a > very common area for configuration mistakes. > > Regards, > Bryn. > > > I don't think this is hardware-specific. I've seen this problem on desktop-grade hardware, using either IDE or SATA drives (single 300GB Seagate). Mine happened while I was using cloning software CloneZilla (don't remember which version, right now). I'll post more details if/when i run into the problem again... -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines