Odd problem with kernel 3.6-rc3 on the Dreamplug…

I had the usual /etc/fstab entry, with both the ext4 root and vfat boot devices configured, but now – despite LVM / RAID not being enabled in the kernel, the init/systemd process insisted on treating the vfat device as a LVM/RAID device, and failing, and dropping to the ’emergency’ command shell..

[  OK  ] Started Wait for storage scan.
         Starting Initialize storage subsystems (RAID, LVM, etc.)...
[  OK  ] Started Initialize storage subsystems (RAID, LVM, etc.).
         Starting Initialize storage subsystems (RAID, LVM, etc.)...
[  OK  ] Started Initialize storage subsystems (RAID, LVM, etc.).

long pause….   then:

[ TIME ] Timed out waiting for device dev-sdb1.device.
[DEPEND] Dependency failed for /boot.
[DEPEND] Dependency failed for Local File Systems.
[DEPEND] Dependency failed for Mark the need to relabel after reboot.
[DEPEND] Dependency failed for Relabel all filesystems, if necessary.
[DEPEND] Dependency failed for D-Bus System Message Bus Socket.
.........etc........

……….   and then the emergency command shell..

As this is a -rc release, this may be a bug, or a ‘feature’?    In any case, the workaround is straightforward..    Just flag the vfat device as …noauto.. in fstab:

# cat /etc/fstab
LABEL=dream_root        /                       ext4    defaults,noatime,nodiratime 1 1
LABEL=dream_boot        /boot                   vfat    defaults,noauto 0 0
devpts                  /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
tmpfs                   /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
proc                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
sysfs                   /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0

and then add the mount for /boot to /etc/rc.d/rc.local (remembering to make it executable..)

# cat /etc/rc.d/rc.local
#!/bin/sh
mount /boot

It doesn’t matter – on these systems – if /boot is mounted later, in any case, as uImage has already been loaded from the vfat partition by U-Boot before the Linux kernel boots….