Re: raid 5 on boot? root?

From: Justin Guerin (jguerin_at_cso.atmel.com)
Date: 08/18/04

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    Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 17:00:26 -0600
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org

    On Tuesday 17 August 2004 11:13, Richard Weil wrote:
    > I don't know if my configuration is (a) setup badly, or (b) impossible.
    > Before I spend too much more time on it, I wonder if anyone has
    > relevant experience.
    >
    > Is it possible to have both boot and root on RAID 5? I'm getting a
    > kernel panic mid-way through boot. Assuming it's not possible, what
    > about if boot is on a normal drive and root is on RAID 5?
    >
    > I'm running up-to-date Sarge with kernel 2.6.7. I'm using the stock
    > Debian kernel and the Grub boot loader.
    >
    > Thanks,
    >
    > Richard
    >
    >
    Hi Richard,

    It is possible to have both root and boot on a raid partition. I've done it
    with raid1. I can't imagine raid5 would be any different.

    One way to do this is to custom compile your kernel to include all the
    relevant drivers you need (raid and file system) to mount your root
    partition. Debian stock kernels have the drivers compiled as modules,
    which isn't good enough. They need to be compiled into the kernel
    unless...

    You build an initial ram disk image which includes the necessary modules.
    Then, you can use the stock kernels. You just need to make sure the initrd
    was built with the modules you need.

    I have heard that grub might have some limitations booting from a raid
    partition, but I can't say for sure either way. I haven't tried with grub
    yet.

    Oh, and also, some old bioses might have problems. Otherwise, it's
    possible. Note that it's easier to have /boot on a non-raid, so you might
    set it up non-raid at first, then move the /boot partition to raid when
    you've got / working correctly.

    Justin Guerin 

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