Server fails to boot because a device is "busy" on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
Issue
- Server boots but issues the following message:
fsck.ext4 Device or resource busy while trying to open /dev/sdz
- I am using multipath and /dev/sdz is a multipath drive path. But I never use these directly.
- I have friendly names enabled and mount drives by label not device path.
- It seems to find all my other drives ok just not sdz
- It drops me to a rescue shell and I type the root password and I'm able to login
- If I try to run an fsck I get device busy
Environment
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL)
- Issue has been observed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3. Currently unknown which other versions are affected.
- device-mapper-multipath (prior to and including 0.4.9-63.el6) managing SAN paths.
- This issue may be seen on boot-from-SAN environments, and it may stop the system from booting. It can be seen in non-boot-from-SAN environments also.
- Filesystems are listed in /etc/fstab with the device specified as
LABEL=orUUID=for multipath devices.
Subscriber exclusive content
A Red Hat subscription provides unlimited access to our knowledgebase, tools, and much more.
