On Apr 26, 2010, at 7:10 AM, Shawn H Corey wrote:
Frédéric Massot wrote:Hi,4 years ago, I installed Debian with a software RAID 1 on a G4 for an LDAP server. In the end, I did not use the G4 and it remained in a closet. I would again make use of this G4 server with a software RAID 1 and LVM, I use the Squeeze installer. - Is it always to be given at the beginning of the hard drives the two partitions "Apple_partition_map" and "Apple_Bootstrap"?The first partition of any drive must be the partition map so the software can find it. The Apple_Bootstrap partition must be the second partition in the map but, physically, it can be anywhere on the disk.- Is that still uses Yaboot or Squeeze uses grub2 ?PowerPCs always use yaboot.
Does yaboot know enough about LVMs and RAIDs to find the kernel and initrd in a root partition that's in a logical volume on a software raid-1?
To be safe, I'd create a real, live, physical root (or at least a / boot -- not the same as the "Apple_Bootstrap") on each of physical disks of the RAID-1, and periodically mirror them from the "active one". Then if the disk with the active root (or /boot) goes south, you can manually tell yaboot to use one of the mirrors.
I've never actually tried that, myself. The configuration I use personally is slightly less reliable but much easier to set-up. I have 3 disks, one small one and two big ones. The two big ones are setup in a raid-1 and partitioned with LVM. All user data resides on the RAID/LVM. The small disk has everything necessary to boot the system, find the LVM and so on, but nothing that can't be reconstructed by re-installing -- i.e. no user data. If the root disk goes south, I can replace it and use a live-cd to restore it from backups or re-install it from scratch using an install CD.
Enjoy! Rick