I wanted to share a somewhat corner case issue but one that might create a problem for someone.
I think everyone now and then encounters a puzzle that at first stumps you but after looking
into whatever it is … you find useful information.
This is one of those instances. I’ve used LXD for a long time and have used an
external USB2.0/SATAIII dual docking station to plug in HD’s and SSDs as I need them but
apparently I never encountered this one particular operational sequence till this past weekend
when I booted my system but had already turned on the USB/SATAIII external dock/drive.
All of a sudden my LXD didn’t work. Couldn’t find its socket. It took me a while to realize
the problem was related to the sequence of steps I used to boot my system.
- Boot with external USB/SATAIII OFF and LXD works.
- Boot with external USB/SATAIII Dock already ON and a Disk in it and LXD fails.
- Boot with external USB/SATAIII OFF and after boot completes Turn ON USB/SATAIII and LXD works.
So what made the above different outcomes?
Above, Ubuntu Disks application output of my disks…
The 480GB SSD is what I originally configured sudo lxd init to use as storage which at the time
was ( /dev/sdc )
However, now its /dev/sdd not the original /dev/sdc that it was before I BOOTed with the
the external 4TB USB 3.0 HD already ON (re its USB/SATAIII docking station turned on).
If the USB/SATAIII disk is ON when I boot then as you can see from above that init
automatically names the externally attached USB disk as /dev/sda.
This means, on boot, if the external USB/SATAIII disk is already ON then all of the previous
disk devices get " bumped " by one /dev/sdx letter.
What was my LXD storage (/dev/sdc) has now become (/dev/sdd) and LXD no longer knows
where it lives.
So when I now execute ( lxc list ) it errors iyr:
$ lxc list
Error: Get “http://unix.socket/1.0”: EOF
and LXD/LXC is not functional any longer as no - $ lxc works any longer.
There there is a workaround to avoid this…
Wait until after your system boots to turn on the External USB/SATAIII docking station and its disk(s)
This works best because those USB attached SATAIII disks will just be added as the next available
/dev/sdx drive letter not /dev/sda
So booting into Ubuntu first, then turning on the external USB/SATAIII docking station and its Disk(s)
now the 4TB HD gets assigned /dev/sdd and all is good for LXD.
Hope this makes sense and perhaps helps someone else.
Brian