Unable to mount the filesystem due to duplicate UUID error.

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
  • XFS

Issue

  • Unable to mount the XFS filesystem. Duplicate UUID errors are logged in dmesg.
# dmesg | tail
Oct 16 03:29:22 hostname kernel: XFS (sdc1): Filesystem has duplicate UUID c4e2eef9-c744-4c64-8ebc-044373f84ddc - can't mount
Oct 16 03:29:27 hostname kernel: XFS (sdc1): Filesystem has duplicate UUID c4e2eef9-c744-4c64-8ebc-044373f84ddc - can't mount
  • How to change UUID of the XFS filesystem?
  • Unable to mount LVM snapshot of a XFS file-system
 # mount /dev/xfs_snap/snap snap
 mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/xfs_snap/snap,
       missing codepage or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

Resolution

  • Generate unique and new UUID for the affected XFS filesystem using xfs_admin utility.
[ root@hostname ~ ]#  xfs_admin -U generate /dev/vg/lv
Clearing log and setting UUID
writing all SBs
new UUID = 9e1c84e4-b33f-4138-9992-c38b25b84237
  • It is possible to specify custom UUID using the xfs_admin utility.
[ root@hostname ~ ]# xfs_admin -U 9e1c84e4-b33f-4138-9992-c38b25b84237 /dev/vg/lv
  • If the UUID of boot or root partition is changed, rebuilding the grub is required.
[ root@hostname ~ ]# grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

  • Refer an article to change UUID of ext filesystem.

  • As a workaround, Mount the file-system with the nouuid option.

mount -o nouuid /dev/vg/lv  /xfs

Root Cause

  • XFS filesystem has UUID which are unique identifiers of the filesystem.
    Two file systems with same UUID can not be mounted on the same system.
  • If the backing storage of filesystem is cloned or replicated, the metadata that contains UUID information for filesystem will be identical on both filesystems.
  • LVM snapshots will have same UUID as original filesystem.

Diagnostic Steps

  • Check /var/log/messages while mounting the filesystem.
[ root@hostname ~ ]#  tail -f /var/log/messages
Oct 16 03:29:22 hostname kernel: XFS (sdc1): Filesystem has duplicate UUID c4e2eef9-c744-4c64-8ebc-044373f84ddc - can't mount
Oct 16 03:29:27 hostname kernel: XFS (sdc1): Filesystem has duplicate UUID c4e2eef9-c744-4c64-8ebc-044373f84ddc - can't mount
  • Mount the filesystem using nouuid option to check integrity of the filesystem.
# mount -t xfs -o nouuid /dev/vg/lv   /mnt

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