[Novalug] Problems with debian software raid install.

[Miguel Gonzalez Castaños]

Hi,

  It's a long time since I don't configure a software RAID, but I 
remember that the swap and the / (root) partitions I excluded them from 
the RAID. All the important stuff to boot the machine IMHO should be 
outside your RAID. If you can, I'd suggest to plug a third hard drive 
and create partitions for swap and / (var, usr, etc, should go also here 
IMHO).

  Miguel

David A. Cafaro escribió:
> Ok, I need some help.  I'm normally a RedHat/CentOS/Fedora person, but 
> for this project I needed to go with Debian.  One requirements is that 
> the two 160GB hardrives be setup to provide software raid.  No problem 
> the Debian installer seems to handle that no problem and I'm able to 
> setup everything how I would like:
>
> /dev/hda1 108GB raid1 bootable flag
> /dev/hda2 20GB raid1
> /dev/hda3 20GB raid1
> /dev/hda4 2GB raid1
>
> /dev/hdc1 108GB raid1 bootable flag
> /dev/hdc2 20GB raid1
> /dev/hdc3 20GB raid1
> /dev/hdc4 2GB raid1
>
> /dev/md0 108GB / raid1
> /dev/md1 20GB /home raid1
> /dev/md2 20GB /tmp raid1
> /dev/md3 2GB swap raid1
>
> (that's roughly how it's setup)
>
> All seems to go well debian install goes right through and installs 
> all the software, claims grub is installed and reboots.  At which 
> point I get a no bootable device found.  I think maybe grub didn't get 
> install correctly so I try booting into debian rescue.  Debian can't 
> mount the raid, doesn't see it, just the raw raid partitions.  Just 
> for kicks I boot Fedora 6 rescue, it sees the partitions no problem 
> and mounts them all for me to work with.  So from Fedora 6 rescue I 
> chroot and reinstall grub, reboot, and still no boot devices.  Then I 
> find the following article:
>
> http://valery.bgit.net/blog-en/2006/07/30/debian-installer-sata-and-software-raid/ 
>
>
> And figure I'll give that a shot.  I step through the whole article 
> (converting SATA to PATA instructions) and no problem, reboot and no 
> bootable devices.  At this point I've started trying to play with the 
> bios settings to see if that helps, I'm just wondering if there is a 
> known issue with Debian Grub and booting from software raid devices 
> (which should not be a challenge like this).  Any clues?
>
> And this is Debian Etch v 4.0 r1 i3.
>
> Thanks,
> David
>
>
> David A. Cafaro <dac at cafaro.net>
> Cafaro's Ramblings:  www.cafaro.net
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Novalug mailing list
> Novalug at calypso.tux.org
> http://calypso.tux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/novalug
>