Re: You can do root raid NOW...
>> Currently the ReiserFS does not support booting. So if you use ReiserFS (which
>> you want to do for a squid cache, for /usr/src, and for anything else that has
>> lots of little files) then you must have your hard drive partitioned.
>> The released RAID drivers (in 2.2.11) do not have decent support for RAID on
>> the root device. Until the kernel drivers matching the raidtools2 package
>> become standard (or we start making such kernels standard as Red Hat have done)
>> if you want RAID you don't do it on the root file system.
>> If you want to use RAID-1 as much as possible (very desirable for servers and
>> handy for work-stations) or ReiserFS then you need a small partition with /bin,
>> /sbin, /etc, /boot, /dev, /lib and mount-points or sym-links for everything
>> else.
>
>I understand why you think in these terms, but there's a much easier
>way of doing things that works *NOW*, using the current Debian
>install.
>
>Install onto a small (20-64MB) partition. Install Debian on it.
>Reboot, set up your RAID devices. Reboot again into single user mode.
>Copy the contents of the small partition to the raid device. Change
>your configuration so that the small partition will now be /boot.
>Modify your /etc/lilo.conf appropriately. Run lilo. Reboot
>
>Sure, you just wasted 15-60MB, but who cares. That's what, $.15 these
>days?
True, that will work. If I was going to do that type of install I'd setup a
partition of the right size for swap and use that for the initial install to
save wasting space later.
>I've *done* this, more or less (I had to compile the new raidtools and
>patch kernels, etc, this was a year ago), and it works fine. If you
>have the option to use a smart boot manager (say, MILO on the alpha,
>or maybe GRUB on the i386?), you can keep a cold copy of /boot on the
>spare bit of the beginning of your second root disk and get to it
>easily.
That's what I'd like to do. But I really think that it would be a great
benefit to have rescue disks with raidtools2 support so we can do this
properly and easily.
--
My contract ends next week. I'd be happy to do a week's work in the US for
a round-trip air-fare and all expenses.
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