The LVM part of checkfs does only work with LVM as module, but not if it is compiled into kernel. With my gentoo-sources-2.4.20-r5 kernel their is no /proc/lvm directoy after kernel booting. This directory exists after the call of vgscan. Thus the LVM part of checkfs is skipped and the check of the file system of my /home file system on an LVM device fails. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. compile LVM into kernel (not as modules) 2. add a LVM filesystem to /etc/fstab which is mounted during boot 3. try to boot the system Actual Results: You get a single root shell to fix your filesystems, because the filesystem checks on the LVM devices failed. (Sorry i do not have the exact error message any more.) Expected Results: The call of vgscan and vgchange should not depend on the existence of the /proc/lvm directory. I fixed the problem for me by doing the following fix: #if [ -x /sbin/vgscan -a -d /proc/lvm ] if [ -x /sbin/vgscan -a -s /etc/lvmtab ] This makes more sence, because /etc/lvmtab should exist and contain more then zeor bytes if a VG exists. BTW the check some lines below, in front of the vgcreate call, on the existence of /etc/lvmtab is not very reliable, because this file is create on any call of vgscan. If no VG exists the file will be zero bytes, otherwhise it contains the names of the VGs. So i would replace the -f check with a -s check too. For completeness: Portage 2.0.48-r1 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.2.2, glibc-2.3.1-r4) ================================================================= System uname: 2.4.20-gentoo-r5 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) Processor GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/linux/gentoo/ http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu/ http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /var/qmail/control /usr/share/config /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /var/bind /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="" USE="x86 apm gif imlib jpeg libg++ libwww motif pdflib png qt slang spell svga xml2 gdbm readline gpm tcpd perl python gtk 3dnow -arts -avi berkdb crypt cups evms2 encode ethereal -gnome imap innodb java -kde ldap -mad maildir mbox -mikmod mmx -mpeg mysql ncurses nls oggvorbis -opengl oss pam -quicktime samba sasl -sdl slp ssl truetype usb -xv wavelan X -xmms zlib" COMPILER="gcc3" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-mcpu=athlon -O3 -pipe" CXXFLAGS="-mcpu=athlon -O3 -pipe" ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" MAKEOPTS="-j5" AUTOCLEAN="yes" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" FEATURES="sandbox buildpkg ccache distcc"
Then this is a kernel issue, as the driver should register the entry.
I couldnt find any /proc/lvm dir in 2.6 kernels. Checking /proc/lvm exists as a directory in checkfs is a heuristic that fails, perhaps there is a better heuristic...
2.6 kernels needs new checks.
lvm2 support was added in august 2003
