Gordon Henderson wrote:
OK - this is a very intersting and highly debatable subject!
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Well, I didn't mention at all what my server will have to do: it's simply a squid-proxy and will have apache installed (with PHP and mySQL), but just for small "intranet" applications (more "testing" like)...
This is why I was about to apply following partition scheme:
/dev/sda1 - 20 GB (Primary, ext3) /dev/sda2 - 1 GB (Primary, SWAP) /dev/sda5 - 52 GB (Logical, ext3)
I will install / onto sda1 and /var onto sda5, what do you think?
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Some Linux distros will create a smaller /boot partition. I understand this was required in the bad old days when the BIOIS could only address 1024 cylinders, so you had to make sure the kernel image was inside that limit. These days with a modern BIOS it's not required (although others will have other probably good reasons for using it anyway)
I don't know if I should bother with a separate /boot partition, because actually every Debian boots off >1024 cyl...
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I already installed it (as a test) following the instructions found at: http://www.inittab.de/manuals/debootstrap.html
Er - thats a rather "intersting" way to install Debian - I use the standard Woody CD set..
Yes, but I have to install it that way, because the original Woody discs don't contain a working driver for my SCSI Controller. :(
I guess the hardest task will be configuring RAID, as the system works with the above procedure...
OK. So with Debian, I basic, but minimal system on the first drive, not touching the 2nd drive at all during this process... I'll usually compile up a custome kernel at this point to make sure the IDE controllers have DMA, if nothing else.
I will install the system with the above mentioned "alien" procedure, then I would like to *first* activate RAID-1 (maybe it could need to recompile?) and then boot off RAID and see that everything works...
Then with the 2nd drive, partition it to be identical to the first disk, then follow through the runes on the HowTo for mirroring the disks.
I already partitioned both disks the same way (booting with System Rescue CD and using cfdisk).
You can do it 2 ways - either create a mirror set with 1 disk, the other being degraded immediately, then raidhotadd it, or create them step by step, temporarily relocating each partition as you go. (Eg into the swap partition, after you turn swap off!) I use the latter method.
First, move root to another partition:
Eg. mkfs /dev/hda2 (swap partition), mount /dev/hda2 /mnt ; cd / ; find . -xdev | cpio -pm /mnt
This is the hard part - cd /mnt, edit /mnt/etc/fstab and /mnt/etc/lilo to reflect the fact that root is now on /dev/hda2, (make sure swap isn't going to be mounted!) run lilo -r /mnt and reboot. Hopefully the system will now boot with /dev/hda2 being root.
I don't know madm, so (because I've been doing it this way for the past 6 years) I then edit an /etc/raidtab to create a raid1 with /dev/hda1 and /dev/hdc1, mkraid it, mkfs it, mount it under /mnt and copy root back into it as before, edit /mnt/etc/lilo.conf and /mnt/etc/fstab to make it mounted under /dev/md0. The key lines in lilo.conf are then:
boot=/dev/md0 root=/dev/md0 raid-extra-boot=/dev/hda,/dev/hdc
and run lilo -r /mnt
(of-course, substitute /dev/sdX for hdX if you are using SCSI)
finally, use cfdisk to set the partition type to fd for /dev/hda1 and /dev/hdc1 and reboot...
If this works you'll then have root under /dev/md0 and therefore under RAID1... Then you just repeat this for the other partitions - copy them into a spare partition (eg the swap one), create an entry in /etc/raditab for them, mkraid/mkfs/mount/copy/ edit /etc/fstab, cfdisk the partition types and off you go. Finally make the swap partition RAID1, run mkswap on it, and re-enable it in the fstab.
I don't actually understand what you are doing hereby... I mean: doesn't it suffice to start RAID and it handles the "mirroring" and all the stuff? Just following the HOW TO wouldn't be enough?
It's tedious, but it doesn't really take that long if you just install a bare minimal system to start with, then raid the lot, then use dselect or tasksel to install all the other applications you need.
One other tip if you are using ext3 is to tune2fs -i0 -c0 /dev/hdaX after the mkfs -t ext3 ... to make sure it's not force checked after so many days/mounts.
That's another "black hole" in my knowledge: what is this thing above?!?
Enjoy...
Gordon
Thank you very much for your time and your explanations...
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