[arch-general] dmraid-1.0.0rc15 in testing, need you help on this!

[David C. Rankin]

On Monday 22 June 2009 02:14:15 am Tobias Powalowski wrote:
> > 	So I guess I will have to edit all the scripts to put an extra 'p' in
> > them as well. (Really kind of a pain, but if this new scheme is going to
> > be the standard, I can do it, ...but if this is just a 'proposed' change,
> > then I would rather not.
> >
> > 	So is this Official? If so I don't mind changing them around and I know
> > SuSE will eventually catch up. I've cc'ed Heinz Mauelshagen (the dev at
> > Redhat to see if he thinks this is permanent. This does present a problem
> > for Linux dual boot boxes. What was the reason to the change anyway?
> >
> > 	Tobias, let me know if you want me to run any more test. (I don't have
> > anything to rebuild right now or I would try the -R command which is an
> > EXCELLENT addition to dmraid. Kuddos to the brainchild behind that.
>
> Hi,
> since i didn't have changed the source code of dmraid i think it is an
> official change, i guess it follows the kernel name scheme here.
>
> I try to add some more dmraid specific stuff to archboot setup routine.
> Reading through this wiki:
> http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installing_with_Fake-RAID
>
> - Is it really enough to call dmraid -ay after you partitioned your
> raidset? Isn't this updated automatically?

	I'm no dmraid expert, but I can tell you that any time you remove and 
recreate your dmpartitions, you will get a NEW set of partition labels. If you 
look at the wiki, you will see my old Arch partitions on this same machine 
were:

nvidia_fffadgic
nvidia_fffadgic5
nvidia_fffadgic6
nvidia_fffadgic7
nvidia_fffadgic8

	After a drive failure and no -R (rebuild) option yet (in the community 
release), I had to delete my existing array, partition my new replacement disk 
to match the good disk, and then use 'dd' to copy all the partitions from 
'good drive' -> 'new drive' and then add both disks to a new dmraid in the 
bios. When I did that, I ended up with:

nvidia_ecaejfdi
nvidia_ecaejfdi5
nvidia_ecaejfdi6
nvidia_ecaejfdi7
nvidia_ecaejfdi8

	The naming was entirely automatic. I don't know if it was handled in the bios 
or in Arch, but I do know, I didn't to it. Now with the new dmraid 1.0.15rc, I 
have and the new p, I have:

nvidia_ecaejfdi
nvidia_ecaejfdip5
nvidia_ecaejfdip6
nvidia_ecaejfdip7
nvidia_ecaejfdip8


>
> - There are some mentions that you need to dmsetup remove_all before, which
> I think is not correct.

I agree with you, no need to even tough dmsetup. All I did was add the 'p's in 
../grub/menu.lst and change fstab like the warning said and it is all OK.

>
> - Installing grub do i need this C H S hack?
>   Is grub failing if i just install it on (hd0)?

I don't think it would (maybe) My /boot/grub device map seems to handle that 
correlation:

[02:47 archangel:~] # cat /boot/grub/device.map
(hd0) /dev/mapper/nvidia_fdaacfde
(hd1) /dev/mapper/nvidia_ecaejfdi
(fd0) /dev/fd0

It is just mapping the labels to (hd0), etc. so nothing jumps out at me saying 
you can't

>
> - How about lilo? Is lilo working without any modification?

I don't think I have worked with lilo since Mandrake 7.4 (air) release on an 
old 386 machine from floppy discs (Maybe it was on a CD)

>
> Sorry for asking so many questions, but without the hardware some things
> are really difficult to guess.
> Thanks for your help on this.
> greetings
> tpowa

	Thank you for you help. I'm just really glad to have the --rebuild capability 
now. I really like dmraid and I have it on 5-6 setups - never a single loss of 
data in the past 4-5 years since I have been using it. Great work!


-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
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