gimecoffee
-
Posts
7 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by gimecoffee
-
-
Adam, Is the image available for download so I can update my 2007 flash drive? -Rois
-
I never changed my lilo.conf to look at my second hard disk, so can't help you on the little error you're getting. I don't remember seeing an error on this when I was using lilo and raid1 in Mandriva.
There is no error if you keep the default settings. (boot=/dev/hda) Even XFS does load and boot with raid1. The second hard drive is what started me on this little quest. I was testing the raid1 to make sure if the primary failed I (or whoever is responsible for the machine) could actually boot the second drive to keep things going or just to replace the primary. With lilo set to boot=/dev/hda, the lilo boot loader didn't get written to /dev/hdc so when I pulled the plug on /dev/hda, /dev/hdc had no boot loader and couldn't do anything. Probably there would be a way to use the rescue disk to fix this but I just couldn't believe it would be that difficult. And low and behold I was correct. With Reiserfs or ext3, and LILO altered to be boot=/dev/md0, raid-extra-boot=mbr, lilo is written to all disks in the md0 array. That way if the Primary-Master (/dev/hda) fails I can still reboot from the Seconary-Master(/dev/hdc) OR when I need to replace the failed primary-master, I can move /dev/hdc in the /dev/hda position and put a new blank disk in the /dev/hdc position for configuration and adding back to the array.
Thanks again for all the help.
Rois
-
Well I hadn't thought about reiserfs. I gave that one a try and when boot=/dev/md0 and
raid-extra-boot=mbr it works perfectly. I guess that would lead me to believe that it's really an xfs+raid1+lilo issue. I've always used ext3 because that was the installation default but a friend of mine (that admins for large corporation server networks) suggested I look at XFS. Do you have any recommendations one way or another on Reiserfs vs XFS? From everything I've read they are fairly comparable. I'm presume they each have places where they work the best. Mine will be a backup mirror for smb and MySql.
I put a lot of stock in what my admin buddy says but it's rather mute if MDK 2007 won't do what it's suppose to like it will with ReiserFS. I think XFS has been around for a long time and that makes me feel a little better as well.
My XFS lilo error during installation says: (set to mbr and NOT first partion)
An error occurred
You can not install the bootloader on a xfs partion
...propogated
If I leave the boot=/dev/hda during installation and alter lilo.conf once I've boot in I get:
Fatal: Filesystem would be destroyed by LILO boot sector: /dev/md0
I suppose I could do reiserfs (or ext3) on md0 to get the boot issues to work correctly and then use XFS on md1 for the rest of my file system. Thoughts on mixing filesystems? Good or Bad thing?
ianw1974, thanks for taking the time to talk about this with me. I appreciate the help.
Rois
-
Just to uncomplicate things I decided to try a re-install using raid1 without LVM and using ext3 instead of xfs. Before the finished install reboot I changed the boot loader to boot=/dev/md0. That worked perfectly. Upon examination of lilo.conf the install program has
---------------------------
. . .
boot=/dev/md0
raid-extra-boot=mbr
. . . .
---------------------------
Restarting with /dev/hda unplugged booted right up (/dev/hdc only.) Moving /dev/hdc to the primary master (/dev/hda) came right up as well.
So the introduction of XFS or LVM both appear to break it OR perhaps I'm missing something in the configuration to allow XFS and/or LVM. Any thoughts on why XFS might be causing a problem? I've been searching the web for any info on XFS and raid and haven't found anything.
My next idea was to do 2 raid1's. md0 would be 512MB ext3 (if I can't use XFS) and have the root ( / ) on it. Then md1 could have LVM on it with all the rest of my space. The mandriva installation program does md0 and the reboot works fine as I mentioned about BUT I'd like to add a hot-spare/spare-device and can't seem to find a reference to make that work. I have bee able to use the feature when I manually create an array using the option "--spare-devices=1 /dev/hdb1", but how do you add "spare device" after the initial create that the installation program is done and rebooted ? Is that even possible?
Thanx
-
I've tried boot changing boot to /dev/hdc and running lilo -v. The command runs as usual with no error but when I unplug /dev/hda and boot I'm still getting the screen filling with '9''s. I also tried putting the drive into the primary master postition (/dev/hda) and had the same problem. Maybe I'm just not understanding. Seems like if you had a bad primary on a software raid 1 there should be a way to have the seconary boot. Otherwise how would you evey be able to change the primary.
-
I'm using 2 6gig ide's with 1 big partition each and software (mdadm) raid1. /dev/md0 is /dev/hda1 and /dev/hdc1. I'm also using lvm to partion /dev/md0 if that makes a difference. I'm up and runing with MDK2007 just fine. If I unplug /dev/hdc and try to boot everything comes up fine but if I unplug /dev/hdc and try to reboot the boot loader isn't found.
Here is my lilo.conf
-------------------------------------
default="linux"
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=menu
keytable=/boot/us.klt
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
compact
prompt
nowarn
timeout=20
message=/boot/message
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/vg0/root
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
---------------------------------------
What do I have to do to make /dev/hdc boot in case of failure in /dev/hda.
Thanx
Rois
Installing Mandriva with Software RAID
in Tips and Tricks
Posted
I'm currently using Mandriva 2008.1 with a RAID1+LVM. Here is how I'm setup:
Note that raid-extra-boot is set to 'mbr' and NOT the drives. Somehow this knows to write to the boot sectors of your boot device. /dev/hda1 and /dev/hdc1 are the md0 members and md0 is an ext3 partition that is only big enough to put the "/boot" directory in. I had in the past tried to make the boot partition xfs but raid had issues with it. This method is may not be necessary in Mandriva 2009.
Hope that helps.
Rois Cannon