you have not defined a root partition (/), which is required for installation or Red Hat Enterprise Linux to continue

Latest response

Hello - I am trying to set up RedHat 7.1 Server to house a Oracle 12c server. So I am creating this on VSphere 6.0. the problem is that I am encountering is the following error message "you have not defined a root partition (/), which is required for installation or Red Hat Enterprise Linux to continue. You have not created a bootable partition". This is happening when I try to create the mount points during the installation of the Red Hat server. The issue is thought that I have created the / partition and it is visible. Can anyone offer any enlightenment. Thank you

Responses

Hi,

could you please describe a bit more how you configured the disks in Anaconda? See this page for details.

Hello,

What am doing is booting from a ISO on vsphere. It is RHEL 7.1 with 500GB hard disk. I created the /boot as 1GB, /root as 10GB and /tmp as 2GB, /var as 8GB and then a /u01 for Oracle as 375GB with a /backup as 50GB. When I scan the dish this is when the error pops up.

Are you creating / at 10GB or /root as 10GB? /root is the root account's home directory. / is your root filesystem. If you are actually creating /root as you say here, that is your problem because that would mean you have not defined /.

Sorry Mike - that is badly worded up there. I have in fact created /boot as 1GB and / as 10GB. Hope that clarifies. Thank you and sorry for confusion. I have most definitely defined /

Patrick, Also consider using the Red Hat Kickstart Configutor https://access.redhat.com/labs/kickstartconfig/ and then put the kickstart some place where the system can see it when you build it. You can define all your partitions through that utility.

Additionally, if you have an existing like-architecture system, you can take a copy of the /root/anaconda*.cfg file and adjust it to something to suit your needs. Also see this discussion https://access.redhat.com/discussions/653333

edited lastly see this Red Hat documentation on kickstarts (docs.redhatcom aka access.redhat.com/documentation)

I think it is something I am over looking. Not sure what though as I am basically just booting of a cd/iso to install RHEL 7.1 version. Though I am not sure what. The /boot and / are on different mounts. Also /boot is Standard Partition with XFS and '/' is LVM with XFS file system. So am not sure why it is complaining since /boot is on its own partition.

Thank you for your input Gentlemen.

Patrick, check out these instructions specifically geared to partitioning installation with Anaconda (the graphical gui you speak of) at this Red Hat link https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/Installation_Guide/sect-disk-partitioning-setup-x86.html

This may make it easier to, look at this youtube video on custom rhel7 partitioning by Sander Van Vugt, (he posted this video, he is a noted instructor and he apparently provides that video for free as a preview of his overall course).

Thank you - I looked at that yesterday and did not help any. Am not sure where the problem is. Whether its with vSphere or possibly the iso that was downloaded. It works on Centos 7 and VMWorkstation 12

Hello Patrick,

Are you installing from the CD or literately booting from the CD and running commands from the rescue mode? For the remark the / mountpoint is visible confuses me about what you are doing.

Please explain in more detail what you do and maybe make a screenshot of where you see the error message.

Kind regards,

Jan Gerrit

Hello Jan - I am booting off a iso and using vSphere 6. I also tested this out on VMWorkstation 12 on Centos 7 and it worked fine.

ok the issue seems to be fixed. Spoke with my VMWare Admon and we sat down together to work on it. We used LVM Thin Provisioning versus LVM for creating the partitions. This seems to have fixed the problem. Thank you everyone for your input and I now need to research the difference between the two - obviously something to do with how the space is allocated I am thinking. Thank you everyone again.

That sounds like an obscure fix, is this the only configuration item you changed?

Hello PixelDrift.NET Support ,

Yes that is the only thing that we did different and it allowed me to create the mount points. I agree that is obscure but it worked for me. I still have to research the difference between LVM Thin Provisioning & LVM. Maybe its a VM bug but I highly doubt it.

Patrick, for consistency in future builds, perhaps consider some use of RHEL Linux kickstart. Some options are PXE boot with a PXE server (can be a Red Hat Satellite server configured as such. NOTE: constrain/test your PXE server so it doesn't reload other servers inadvertantly, or cause them to hang upon a reboot looking for a PXE image when they should not do so). You can constrain it to a vlan. We had to add "helpers" to our switches to guide authorized systems to the PXE server on a specific subnet. Another alternative, consider puppet or ansible (you don't have to use ansible-tower, you can use the free version that's in EPEL). Puppet comes as part of Satellite version 6.x and is highly versitle. The Red Hat Satellite server also has the means to imbed your kickstarts within it, offering whatever channels or views (version 5 or 6) and adding configuration control (through activation keys or again, via puppet).

It might be a good idea at minimum, once you've built the system you speak of - to save off the /root/anaconda-ks.cfg file, this link explains why (Red Hat documentation). You could put that file on a web server that's visible to the system you're installing and use kickstart in that way as well. You'll have to uncomment/verify your partitioning in the resultant /root/anaconda-ks.cfg file before using it.

    The Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation process automatically writes a Kickstart file that contains the settings for the installed system. This file is always saved as /root/anaconda-ks.cfg. You may use this file to repeat the installation with identical settings, or modify copies to specify settings for other systems. 
Close

Welcome! Check out the Getting Started with Red Hat page for quick tours and guides for common tasks.