Re: [opensuse] RAID 1 10.3 install doesn't boot


----- Original Message ----- From: "Carlos F. Lange" <carlos.lange@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Michael Fischer" <michael@xxxxxxxx>; "opensuse" <opensuse@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 9:49 AM
Subject: Re: [opensuse] RAID 1 10.3 install doesn't boot


On Tue May 6 2008 20:44:49 Michael Fischer wrote:
Just got a new box with 2 identical SATA drives.

Followed (as best as my poor eyes could see the screenshots)
the advice given at

http://en.opensuse.org/How_to_install_openSUSE_on_software_RAID

(first time trying the RAID thing)

Everything pretty much went as expected, but the system would
not reboot from the HD(s) at the midpoint of the install.

I was not able to pass the midpoint when I formatted the root partition
(RAID1) with ext3, but it worked fine if I used Reiser on the same
partition. I reported this as a bug here:
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=350992

Did you try to use Reiser on your partition containing /boot?

Huh? All my boxes boot from ext3 on software raid1.
All my boxes have /boot on a small raid1 with ext3, all software raid, no fake-raid and any fake-raid options in the bios disabled.

My typical setup is anywhere from 4 to 12 identical drives, each with identical partitioning, 3 primary partitions:
1: 128M raid1 /boot ext3
2: 512M raid0 swap
3: remainder raid10 / reiser3

I almost always have to use the "boot installed system" option in the installer and manually edit /etc/grub.conf, /boot/grub/device.map, and /boot/grub/menu/lst, and then run grub --batch </etc/grub.conf

For an 8-drive box it looks like this:

/etc/gub.conf:
setup (hd0) (hd0,0)
setup (hd1) (hd1,0)
setup (hd2) (hd2,0)
setup (hd3) (hd3,0)
setup (hd4) (hd4,0)
setup (hd5) (hd5,0)
setup (hd6) (hd6,0)
setup (hd7) (hd7,0)
quit


/boot/grub/device.map:
(hd0) /dev/sda
(hd1) /dev/sdb
(hd2) /dev/sdc
(hd3) /dev/sdd
(hd4) /dev/sde
(hd5) /dev/sdf
(hd6) /dev/sdg
(hd7) /dev/sdh


/boot/grub/manu.lst:
default 0
timeout 30

title openSUSE 10.3 (hd0)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/md2 console=ttyS0,115200n8 noresume showopts
initrd /initrd

title openSUSE 10.3 (hd1)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/md2 console=ttyS0,115200n8 noresume showopts
initrd /initrd


The things to note are,
* You may not have to edit devices.map, usually the drives are listed out of order but they're all there, I just usually install from a bootable usb stick, and usually the usb stick is included in devices.map, and I don't want it in there. It would have been /dev/sdi in this case.
* The grub.conf settings cause grub to be set up on each individual drive such that if the drives were unplugged and moved around in the hot-swap bays, or if the bios settings alter the dricve discovery order, any drive will boot to the grub menu and load the kernel and inirtrd. So you can boot from any drive.
* menu.lst has a stanza to boot from the 2nd drive just in case there is a problem with the /boot partition on the 1st drive, it's a fastest way to boot up and get running again. could make more stanzas to boot from any of the 8 drives but you'd never use them.
* I usually have to edit menu.lst to put it back this way after any kernel updates. /boot/vmlinuz is always a symlink that points to whatever is the current kernel, same for initrd so menu.lst never actually needs to change, but yast edits the file during the update.
* you probably don't want the console= option in menu.lst
* the paths to vmlinuz and initrd in menu.lst are correct. in the context of the rest of this setup, vmlinuz is /vmlinuz not /boot/vmlinuz, because /boot is it's own filesystem, not a directory in /
* setting up multiple partitions the same way on 8 or more drives would be a tedious drag in yast but autoyast does it automatically in a second, or you can use sfdisk at one of the other virtual consoles to do one drive and quickly duplicate it to the others non-interactively.

For some unfathomable reason, once in a great while the installer does actually manage to create a working /boot on it's own. The config files look different than above but it boots. I haven't yet figured out how to get it to work all on it's own reliably. I gave up trying and just set up the above configuration manually every time.

--
Brian K. White brian@xxxxxxxxx http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR
+++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++.
filePro BBx Linux SCO FreeBSD #callahans Satriani Filk!

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