[Beowulf] Re: moving of Linux HDD to other node: udev problem at boot

[Mikhail Kuzminsky]

In message from "David Mathog" <mathog at caltech.edu> (Thu, 20 Aug 2009 
11:29:17 -0700):
>"Mikhail Kuzminsky" <kus at free.net> wrote:
>> I moved Western Digital SATA HDD w/SuSE 10.3 installed (on dual 
>> Barcelona server) to dual Nehalem server (master HDD on Nehalem 
>> server) with Supermicro X8DTi mobo.
>
>Which means any number of drivers will have to change.  The boot 
>could
>only succeed if all of these new drivers are present in the distro 
>AND
>the installation isn't hardwired to use information from the previous
>system.  The first may be true,

It was, of course, the main hope

> the second is almost certainly false.

... and the second can be resolved IMHO w/o difficult problems.
>On Mandriva, and probably Red Hat, and maybe Suse, even cloning 
>between
>"identical" systems requires that that the file:
>
>  /etc/udev/rules.d/61-net_config.rules
>
>be removed before reboot as it holds a copy of the MAC from the 
>previous
>system, and no two machines (should) have the same MAC even if they 
>are
>otherwise identical. 

SuSE have this "problem", but at least 11.1 have special setting to 
avoid such udev behaviour. And updating of network settings isn't a 
problem.

> There are a lot of other files in the same
>directory which I believe hold similar machine specific information.
>Similarly, your /etc/modprobe.conf will almost certainly load modules
>which are not appropriate for the new system. 

Is there some modules which depends from processors ?
The NIC drivers isn't a problem.

> If there is an /etc/sysconfig directory there may be files there that also hold machine specific information.  The /etc/sensors.conf configuration will also certainly also be incorrect.

Of course, lm_sensors and NICs settings have to be changed. But HDDs 
for example was the same (excluding size).

>Perhaps you can successfully boot the system in safe mode and then 
>run
>whatever configuration tool Suse provides to reset all of these 
>hardware
>specific files? 

The problem don't depends from kind of load (safemode or usual).

>David Mathog
>mathog at caltech.edu
>Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech