On my system LVM init script starts before device-mapper, and, naturally, fails, resulting in failed fsck and localmount. After that it makes another attempt to start and runs smoothly, because device-mapper gets started at that point. In fact, it starts right after lvm fails ;) Both are present at the 'boot' runlevel. I have several LVM partitions, which are necessary for normal operation, so starting LVM during boot is essential. I have root on LVM partition as well, so I use initrd to mount it, and initrd itself have no trouble setting up all the mappings with device-mapper/lvm and simple vgscan/lvscan, mounting rootfs afterwards. Fix is simple: just add 'device-mapper' to 'need ...' line, along with dmcrypt in /etc/init.d/lvm. I'm quite sure that LVM always depends on device mapper, so I cant't quite understand whit this dependency should be omitted in initscript. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Add LVM mounts to fstab 2. Reboot the system Actual Results: lvm fails to create lv device nodes Expected Results: lvm successfully creates all existing lv nodes Configuration is a laptop, where my actual hard drive have four primary partitions: /dev/sda1: /boot ext3 /dev/sda2: unused /dev/sda3: dm-encrypted partition (serpent-lrw-benbi:sha256) Mapped (decrypted) by initrd, as /dev/mapper/lvcrypt. Contains one LVM pv, used for vg 'prime' with three lvs: /dev/prime/core /home ext4 /dev/prime/varz /var ext4 /dev/prime/swap swap /dev/sda4: one pv, used for vg 'aux' with three lvs: /dev/aux/portage /usr/portage xfs /dev/aux/extent /opt xfs /dev/aux/crypt /mnt/crypt reiserfs sys-fs/lvm2-2.02.42 sys-fs/device-mapper-1.02.28 sys-apps/baselayout-2.0.0 sys-apps/openrc-0.4.1-r1 # rc-config list | g -e device-mapper -e lvm device-mapper boot lvm boot rc boot logging started at Sat Jan 17 14:41:16 2009 * Setting system clock using the hardware clock [Local Time]... [ ok ] * Autoloaded 0 module(s) * ERROR: cannot start lvm as device-mapper would not start * device-mapper uses addon code which is deprecated * and may not be available in the future. * Setting up dm-crypt mappings... * dm-crypt mapping lvcrypt is already configured [ ok ] * Checking local filesystems ... /sbin/fsck.xfs: /dev/aux/root does not exist * Operational error [ !! ] * Remounting root filesystem read/write... [ ok ] * Updating /etc/mtab... [ ok ] * Invalidating stale software suspend images... [ ok ] * Mounting local filesystems... mount: special device /dev/aux/portage does not exist mount: special device /dev/aux/extent does not exist mount: special device /dev/aux/crypt does not exist mount: special device /dev/prime/varz does not exist mount: special device /dev/prime/core does not exist ... * About to start the service lvm * lvm uses addon code which is deprecated * and may not be available in the future. * Setting up the Logical Volume Manager... [ ok ] ... ...and the rest is mostly ok, except for services that depends on data in /var or /home, which aren't mounted until you manually type 'mount -a', which works, since LVM is started at this point.
Oh, forgot to mention that /dev/sda4-based vg 'aux' also contains /dev/aux/root lv (xfs), which is successfully mapped and mounted by initrd.
Thanks for reporting this issue (and your solution). Assigning to maintainers.
LVM itself depends on the device-mapper module. It does NOT depend on the device-mapper init script. The device-mapper init script really should be called dmtab, because it creates all of the volumes defined in /etc/dmtab (After loading the device-mapper module if needed). The LVM script loads the device-mapper module, and followed by pvscan, vgscan, vgchange. "need device-mapper" is not correct. "after device-mapper" is. However, you can still create systems that are foiled by that route. Use DM-RAID on your disks, with LVM in the middle, and another DM layer on top of that. I added "after device-mapper" for now.
