[arch-general] motherboard change - strategies for saving current install?
All, I lost the disc controller in my arch server this past Sunday. I've ordered a replacement w/new processor, etc.. My question is what is the best strategy to save my current install? It's a simple: "can I boot the install media, assemble raid arrays, chroot old and update, or do I just dump the root partition and reinstall completely?" The hardware change will be from an AM2+ MSI board with Phenom 9850 to a Gigabyte AM3+ board with FX8350 if that matters. The primary goal is to preserve the raid arrays and server config for mail, web, etc... I know I can chroot, save the needed configs, reformat root and reinstall, but what I don't know is if there is an easier way that would avoid the reformat/reinstall of root? This will also be by first UEFI install, but I'm fairly certain the beginner's guide will get me through if a full reinstall is needed. However, does that have implications on being able to save the old partitions and my mdraid arrays? The current setup was a simple MBR, mdraid1 with grub2. I don't have a EFI system partition, but I believe I left space at the end of my arrays (I'll have to check if it is a full 512 MiB). I don't know if I can salvage that setup by adding the EFI system partition at the end? Reading from the beginner's guide: "The target drive requires a GPT partition table, and an EFI System Partition of at least 512 MiB in size, gdisk type EF00, and formatted with FAT32." That seems to indicate that any chance of salvaging my current install may be hopeless due to the current MBR partition table. If there is a link that covers this in the wiki, I apologize, I haven't found it yet. Thanks for any advise or helpful tips you can give. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 10:08 AM, David C. Rankin < drankinatty@suddenlinkmail.com> wrote:
All,
I lost the disc controller in my arch server this past Sunday. I've ordered a replacement w/new processor, etc.. My question is what is the best strategy to save my current install? It's a simple:
"can I boot the install media, assemble raid arrays, chroot old and update, or do I just dump the root partition and reinstall completely?"
You can chroot to your old rootfs and reinstall the bootloader, regenerate your initramfs(or use the fallback initramfs when booting) and boot your system.
The hardware change will be from an AM2+ MSI board with Phenom 9850 to a Gigabyte AM3+ board with FX8350 if that matters. The primary goal is to preserve the raid arrays and server config for mail, web, etc...
I know I can chroot, save the needed configs, reformat root and reinstall, but what I don't know is if there is an easier way that would avoid the reformat/reinstall of root?
This will also be by first UEFI install, but I'm fairly certain the beginner's guide will get me through if a full reinstall is needed. However, does that have implications on being able to save the old partitions and my mdraid arrays? The current setup was a simple MBR, mdraid1 with grub2. I don't have a EFI system partition, but I believe I left space at the end of my arrays (I'll have to check if it is a full 512 MiB). I don't know if I can salvage that setup by adding the EFI system partition at the end? Reading from the beginner's guide:
If you can set your system to legacy boot, it'll be easier. UEFI need an ESP, so if you use UEFI boot, you have to repartition your disk. UEFI does not need GPT partition table, but GPT is better.
"The target drive requires a GPT partition table, and an EFI System Partition of at least 512 MiB in size, gdisk type EF00, and formatted with FAT32." That seems to indicate that any chance of salvaging my current install may be hopeless due to the current MBR partition table.
If there is a link that covers this in the wiki, I apologize, I haven't found it yet. Thanks for any advise or helpful tips you can give.
-- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 10:08 PM, David C. Rankin < drankinatty@suddenlinkmail.com> wrote:
The hardware change will be from an AM2+ MSI board with Phenom 9850 to a Gigabyte AM3+ board with FX8350 if that matters.
Post back and tell us how it goes. I just got a gigabyte 990fxa with AMD 9590, and had some difficulties. It seems like two internal Sata ports (5 and 6) don't work? Also, the realtek onboard ethernet card wasn't trivial to get going, and the USB configuration was a little wonky. Sorry, I don't have any advice concerning the RAID. Are you using mdadm, or a raid card? The 990fxa has 6 sata ports and has two onboard non-software RAID options. Of course, I don't know if you would be able to reconstruct your existing RAID on there.
On Wed, Aug 12, 2015, at 10:08 PM, David C. Rankin wrote:
"can I boot the install media, assemble raid arrays, chroot old and update, or do I just dump the root partition and reinstall completely?"
You'll need to reinstall, I think. According to [1], ESP on RAID is not a good idea, which means one of your drives will have to host the EFI (and also usually boot) partition. [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/EFI#ESP_on_RAID Instead, you can do something similar to the full-disk encryption / plausible deniability setup I experimented with a few months ago [2] -- host the EFI / boot partition on a high quality USB drive instead and keep your RAID array intact. [2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Encrypting_an_entire_system#Pl...
On 08/12/2015 09:53 PM, Christian Demsar wrote:
On Wed, Aug 12, 2015, at 10:08 PM, David C. Rankin wrote:
"can I boot the install media, assemble raid arrays, chroot old and update, or do I just dump the root partition and reinstall completely?"
You'll need to reinstall, I think. According to [1], ESP on RAID is not a good idea, which means one of your drives will have to host the EFI (and also usually boot) partition.
[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/EFI#ESP_on_RAID
Instead, you can do something similar to the full-disk encryption / plausible deniability setup I experimented with a few months ago [2] -- host the EFI / boot partition on a high quality USB drive instead and keep your RAID array intact.
[2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Encrypting_an_entire_system#Pl...
Thank you Iru, Aaron and Christian, Aaron, the board is a GA-990FXA-UD3, and I will be making use of SATA 5/6 (6 drives total), so I'll report back on any difficulties with the last two drives. My current board (MSI k9n2 SLI platinum) had SATA 1-4 and ESATA 5-6 on board. While the 990FXA list the SATA 5-6 as full SATA-III ports, I wouldn't be surprised if they were in some way different from the primary/secondary controller ports. According to the suggestions, I'll first attempt setting the board/BIOS in Legacy mode, and attempt to boot/chroot/assemble and rebuild initramfs and preserve my existing install (I was quite happy with the pair of carvair blacks the system was sitting on) If that fails, I'll look at a full reinstall. If that's needed, I'll probably just use a pair of new drives, format as GPT for full UEFI and attempt adding the existing arrays on the secondary installer after the install is complete. Thanks again, this is exactly the plan of attack I needed to get straight in my head. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 2:15 AM, David C. Rankin < drankinatty@suddenlinkmail.com> wrote:
Aaron, the board is a GA-990FXA-UD3, and I will be making use of SATA 5/6 (6 drives total), so I'll report back on any difficulties with the last two drives. My current board (MSI k9n2 SLI platinum) had SATA 1-4 and ESATA 5-6 on board. While the 990FXA list the SATA 5-6 as full SATA-III ports, I wouldn't be surprised if they were in some way different from the primary/secondary controller ports.
That's the same board that I got last week. I don't remember SATA 5-6 being different from 1-4; where did you see that? When I get back home, I'll double-check my manual and the box, but I don't see anything online suggesting that they're any different. I understood that all 6 SATA ports are SATA revision 3 (I assume that's the same as SATA-III), but I could be mistaken. I would like to believe that 5-6 are different than the others, because it would probably explain my earlier difficulties satisfactorily.
On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 9:53 AM, Aaron Laws <dartme18@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 2:15 AM, David C. Rankin < drankinatty@suddenlinkmail.com> wrote:
Aaron, the board is a GA-990FXA-UD3, and I will be making use of SATA 5/6 (6 drives total), so I'll report back on any difficulties with the last two drives. My current board (MSI k9n2 SLI platinum) had SATA 1-4 and ESATA 5-6 on board. While the 990FXA list the SATA 5-6 as full SATA-III ports, I wouldn't be surprised if they were in some way different from the primary/secondary controller ports.
That's the same board that I got last week. I don't remember SATA 5-6 being different from 1-4; where did you see that? When I get back home, I'll double-check my manual and the box, but I don't see anything online suggesting that they're any different. I understood that all 6 SATA ports are SATA revision 3 (I assume that's the same as SATA-III), but I could be mistaken. I would like to believe that 5-6 are different than the others, because it would probably explain my earlier difficulties satisfactorily.
Ah, I got it. In BIOS, you can set SATA 4-5 (they're numbered base-zero) to "IDE" rather than "SATA". I assume this means something like the motherboard expects there to be a SATA->IDE adapter in there. Naturally, there isn't in my setup, which could explain why I was having such difficulties partitioning and putting file systems onto my drives when connected to SATA 4 and 5. Thanks for the heads up here, and now you will know to adjust this setting in BIOS (it's page 56 of my manual under "B. Configuring SATA controller mode in BIOS Setup". So that's Peripherals, OnChip SATA Port4/5 Type -- set to -- "AS SATA".) Cheers!
Thu, 13 Aug 2015 13:43:24 -0400 Aaron Laws <dartme18@gmail.com>:
In BIOS, you can set SATA 4-5 (they're numbered base-zero) to "IDE" rather than "SATA". I assume this means something like the motherboard expects there to be a SATA->IDE adapter in there.
No, that means you're setting those ports to "IDE" / "Legacy" / "Compatibility" mode. There might be another option labelled "RAID", activating the software/pseudo-RAID firmware in the motherboard's BIOS, but you'll want to select "AHCI". It's what everybody not running the latest PCIe/M.2 NVMe SSD cards should be using. Also, run 'lsmod | grep ahci' on your old server; in case it's loaded you'll have the least trouble switching mainboards because it's the most compatible standard. --byte
On 08/13/2015 01:25 PM, Jens Adam wrote:
Thu, 13 Aug 2015 13:43:24 -0400 Aaron Laws <dartme18@gmail.com>:
In BIOS, you can set SATA 4-5 (they're numbered base-zero) to "IDE" rather than "SATA". I assume this means something like the motherboard expects there to be a SATA->IDE adapter in there.
No, that means you're setting those ports to "IDE" / "Legacy" / "Compatibility" mode. There might be another option labelled "RAID", activating the software/pseudo-RAID firmware in the motherboard's BIOS, but you'll want to select "AHCI". It's what everybody not running the latest PCIe/M.2 NVMe SSD cards should be using. Also, run 'lsmod | grep ahci' on your old server; in case it's loaded you'll have the least trouble switching mainboards because it's the most compatible standard.
Thank you Jens, That is another piece of the puzzle I wasn't aware of. "We will all get dragged kicking and screaming into the future eventually..." -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
On 08/13/2015 04:53 AM, Christian Demsar wrote:
On Wed, Aug 12, 2015, at 10:08 PM, David C. Rankin wrote:
"can I boot the install media, assemble raid arrays, chroot old and update, or do I just dump the root partition and reinstall completely?"
You'll need to reinstall, I think. According to [1], ESP on RAID is not a good idea, which means one of your drives will have to host the EFI (and also usually boot) partition.
I migrated my workstation from old MBR based partition layout to EFI with boot partition on RAID1 using gummiboot. Tested boot with first and second drive disconnected and it works fine. As for migration, you can boot from install media, assemble arrays and just copy all files from old installation to new one. Then you may have to setup boot manager, adjust fstab and list of kernel modules to load. It is worth to update old installation first with pacman and test it before migration. Regards, Łukasz
participants (6)
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Aaron Laws
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Christian Demsar
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David C. Rankin
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Iru Cai
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Jens Adam
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Łukasz Michalski