Thank you for your response. My hat is off to you. Few people return such thorough and detailed posts. > > Hello? Anyone? I'm flummoxed, here. I tried to write in a manual > > assembly of the arrays in the initrd, but so far I haven't been able to > get > > it to work. One way or another, it just hangs when running > > /scripts/local-top/mdadm in the initrd. Even `ls -1 /dev/sd*` returns > an > > error. > > > Ok. > > 1) Get business card image from the link provided and burn to CD and > boot of it. > > http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ > > 2) Select Advanced Options then expert install. > 3) Set Language etc. > 4) When it asks to select installer components select "Network Console" > and continue. > 5) Configure the network (if you haven't already), > 6) In the menu select "Continue installation remotely using ssh and > follow the instructions to connect in via ssh from your desired > workstation and continue. > 7) Select exit to shell > 8) insert the appropriate raid modules: 'modprobe raidX' where X is the > raid levels you use for each raid level you use. > 9) use mdadm to manually assemble the necessary root, /boot and /var > arrays. /var is just part of the main array. Only /boot and the swap area have their own partitions. Interestingly enough, the installer kernel shows the drives to be /dev/hda and /dev/hdb, again. Apparently the installer uses an older kernel? Oh, and it can assemble the third array (the swap area) just fine, or at least it says it can: ~ # mdadm -Dt /dev/md3 /dev/md3: Version : 1.02 Creation Time : Sun Dec 20 05:05:08 2009 Raid Level : raid1 Array Size : 204796548 (195.31 GiB 209.71 GB) Used Dev Size : 204796548 (195.31 GiB 209.71 GB) Raid Devices : 2 Total Devices : 2 Persistence : Superblock is persistent Intent Bitmap : Internal Update Time : Mon May 10 01:08:00 2010 State : active Active Devices : 2 Working Devices : 2 Failed Devices : 0 Spare Devices : 0 Name : 'Backup':3 UUID : 3615c4a2:33786b6d:b13863d9:458cd054 Events : 66 Number Major Minor RaidDevice State 2 3 3 0 active sync /dev/hda3 1 3 67 1 active sync /dev/hdb3 > 10) If your root fs is in LVM do: "modprobe dm_mod" followed by > "vgchange -ay" > 11) make a target directory: "mkdir /target" > 12) mount the root filesystem on /target: mount /dev/<rootfs> /target 'No joy: ~ # mount -o -v /dev/md1 /target mount: mounting /dev/md1 on /target failed: Invalid argument So now, what? I can mount the arrays just fine under the Ubuntu live CD, but not this one. > 13) bind mount the dev sys and proc virtual filesystems: > "mount -o bind /dev /target/dev" > "mount -o bind /sys /target/sys" > "mount -o bind /proc /target/proc" > 14) Chroot: chroot /target /bin/bash > 15) mount /boot /usr /var as needed. > 16) update your mdadm.conf and /etc/fstab etc (ideally use labels for > root and boot or fs UUID's), and any other stuff like installing the > latest mdadm (apt|aptitude should work fine if your internet connected). Uh-uh, again. Neither apt-get nor aptitude seem to be on the CD, at least not when installing this way. > > It's also really odd that I can assemble and mount the root and boot > > arrays, but under Ubuntu I can't even assemble the swap array. It > complains > > that the first member of the array is busy and refuses to start > /dev/md3. > > The results of --examine look identical to those listed below, except of > > course for the partition specific entries (size, drive and array UUID, > > events, etc). > > > This is because ubuntu probably picks up the first swap partition it > finds and uses it. It doesn't mention it when I issue `mount` or lsof. What's more, it gives the same error for both partitions. Also, as I mentioned, it doesn't show any errors when I issue `sudo mdadm --examine [sda3|sdb3]`. Finally, it assembles without complaint under the Debian live CD. > It seems odd to me that all the raid volumes are named "Backup". > Perhaps mdadm doesn't like the name collision. First of all, isn't that the homehost name? If so, it is *SUPPOSED* to be the same for all three. Secondly, it assembled just fine under the old kernel and mdadm, as I mentioned. Thirdly, if it were the case, I would expect it to assemble at least the first target without complaint. Finally, the names aren't the same. They are 'Backup':1, 'Backup':2, and 'Backup':3 > Perhaps you need to recreate some of them with a different name. I'd > suggest recreating the raid1 volumes with different names and the > --assume-clean flag (except the swap one which won't be since the ubuntu > live cd's been messing with one of those component partitions). I think before I try something like that, I would just trash one element of each array, assemble the arrays broken with just one element, and copy over the files to the "new" partitions, and go from there. > I hope this helps. Well, I'm getting somewhere. I'm just not sure where, if I can't get mount to work. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
