Thanks for your reply. When I run the identical commands on the otherwise identical raid, stripes do get created and retained. But just to eliminate the possibility, I re-created a couple of stripes without setting the raid flag and once again, when the raid chassis was rebooted, they disappeared. I'm thinking at this point that it's a hardware problem with the RAID controller. Does that sound likely? On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 3:55 AM, Stan Hoeppner <stan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 5/9/2013 6:29 AM, mashtin.bakir@xxxxxxxxx wrote: >> I have an interesting problem with a Vessraid 1830s. >> We have a few of these that work fine but one seems >> to lose its filesets. The only difference between the >> good ones and the bad one is that the bad one has firmware >> version 3.06 while the good ones are at 3.05 (This may >> not be relevant). > > It's not a firmware problem Mashtin. The problem here is incomplete > education. More accurately, the problem is that you've confused > concepts of hardware RAID and Linux software RAID. I will attempt to > help you separate these so you understand the line in the sand > separating the two. > >> Here's what happens. If I plug the raid into a 32 bit >> RHEL5 box with large files enabled, syslog does pick >> it up: >> >> kernel: Vendor: Promise Model:VessRAID 1830s Rev: 0306 >> Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 >> SCSI device sdc:2929686528 2048-byte hdwr sectors (5999998 MB) > > The kernel sees a single 6TB SCSI device/LUN presented by the Promise > array.. > >> Using the web gui, I can carve out partitions, > > The Promise web gui doesn't create partitions. That's the job of the > operating system. What it does allow you to do is carve out multiple > virtual drives from a single RAID set and export them as individual LUNs. > >> I make three stripes across 4 disks of 2Terabytes each >> using RAID5. > > This is not possible with the Promise firmware. I think you're simply > using incorrect terminology here. According to your dmesg output above > you have created a single hardware RAID5 array of 4 disks, one 6TB > virtual drive, and exported it as a single LUN. > > ... >> I then use gnu-parted (v3.1) to make the >> filesets: > > parted doesn't create "filesets". It creates partitions. What are > "filesets"? > >> mklabel gpt >> mkpart primray 0 0 > > Ok so you created a primary partition. > >> set 1 raid on > > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > THIS IS THE PROBLEM. "set 1 raid on" is used exclusively with Linux > software RAID. What this does is tell the Kernel to look for a software > RAID superblock on the partition and auto start the array. You are not > using md/RAID, but hardware RAID, so the superblock doesn't exist. This > is the source of your problem. This is where you have confused hardware > and software RAID concepts. > >> I create the fileset using > > Ok so when you say "fileset" you actually mean "file system". > >> mkfs.ext3 -m0 /dev/sdc1 >> I can then mount the FS and write to it. >> >> If I either reboot the RAID or the host, the FS disappears >> ie cat/proc/partitions shows only sdc, not sdc1. >> If I go back into parted, the label is intact >> But I can't even mkfs without re-creating the label/partition, >> in wich case I get: > > This is a direct result of "set 1 raid on" as explained above. You > should see other error messages in dmesg about no superblock being found. > >> ...Have been written, but we have been >> unable to >> inform the kernel of the change, probably because it/they are in use. As a >> result, the old partition(s) will remain in use. You should reboot now >> before >> making further changes. >> Ignore/Cancel? i > > Clearing the parted RAID flag on the partition should fix your problem, > assuming you haven't done anything else wonky WRT software RAID and this > partition that hasn't been presented here. > > Always remember this: Any time your see "RAID" setup or configuration > referenced in Linux documentation or cheat sheets on the web, it is > invariably referring to a kernel software function, either md/RAID, > dm-raid, etc. It is never referring to hardware RAID devices. If you > have a hardware RAID device you will never configure anything RAID > related in Linux, whether it be parted, grub, md, dm, etc. > > -- > Stan > > -- 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
