Don, Yes, it certainly can be done. I do it all the time. It's not hard with lilo, but grub doesn't support raid/md boot devices yet. This means that the grub boot record doesn't automatically get written to the second disk. In short, choose lilo for root mirroring if possible. The procedure is simplest if you use the distro installer to configure it, but an existing installation can also be converted to root mirror (raid1). See http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-RAID-HOWTO-4.html (sections 4.11 thru 4.14) or http://scsirastools.sourceforge.net/docs/UserGuide (section 4.0) The md module MUST be staticly linked, not a module (CONFIG_BLK_DEV_MD=y). The other pieces (raid1.o, etc.) can be modules if included in the initrd image. The partitions should be marked as raid autodetect type (0xfd). To be fully redundant, the '/boot', '/' and swap partitions should each be mirrored. Andy -----Original Message----- From: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org [mailto:linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of Paul Clements Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 11:01 AM To: donj@asaca.com Cc: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Booting from a raid1 device ? Don Jessup wrote: > > Is it possible to boot from a raid1 device with the md.o built as a > 2.4.22 kernel module? Yes, but it's tricky. You'd have to load md.o and raid1.o in your initrd (or other early boot time initialization) and then use some, e.g., statically-linked mdadm tool on that initrd to start the array. You cannot, however, use md's RAID autodetect to autostart arrays that have their component partitions marked as RAID autodetect (0xfd), if md is a module. -- Paul > ===== > Don Jessup > Asaca/Shibasoku Corp. of America > 400 Corporate Circle, Unit G > Golden, CO 80401 > 303-278-1111 X232 > donj@asaca.com > http://www.asaca.com > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
