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Re: Software RAID problems (bad filesystem type)



[ Either me or my mail program is going nutty... I could have sworn that I replied to the list, not you Justin. Sorry. ]

After much much headache (and almost buying new serial ata raid hw setup etc.), I got it to work (almost). Solution: compiling my own kernel. You should have warned me how easy it would be. It was really a no-brainer, I was afraid of it for no reason. (Thanks Martin, those german instructions were most helpful, also stuff from http://www.projektfarm.com/en/support/howto/debian_kernel_compile.html helped. )

Things learned along the way (for a Debian [and mostly linux] newbie):
- apt-get, differences between distros
- lilo principals
- crub principals
- fstab principals
- two different sets of raid tools <grin>
- kernel modules
- inittab
- compiling my own kernel
- patience
- that debian community is superb!

I suppose I could package this experience and sell it as a hands-on linux course. ;-)

For anyone starting with Linux software raid:
1. install stable (or anything else you prefer)
2. get 2.4.24 kernel source (apt-get install kernel-source-2.4.24) (or newer)
3. follow instructions from:
http://www.projektfarm.com/en/support/howto/debian_kernel_compile.html
!!!!	- remember to include raid-support (not as module, but built in)
4. follow instructions from http://www.cs.montana.edu/faq/faqw.admin.py? query=1.22&querytype=simple&casefold=yes&req=search
NOTE:
Lilo didn't work for me, it just froze in startup. Therefore had to go the grub way with rescue cd.

ONE final question on this issue:
All is well, except there is something funny about grub setup (or bios, but grub suspected). If I disable either one of the hard disks, it wont' startup at all (it just can't boot). Any pointers as to what might be causing this greatly appreciated again.

Thanks for great help so far!

Timo


On Monday 16 February 2004 13:34, you wrote:
Hi,

(Justin, sorry to harass you off-the list)

I'm really loosing my hair with this. So far:

I got it all to work (sw RAID), it was mostly fstab that was not setup
right. But since then, I've really managed to mess things up. I thought
everything was fine, but didn't realize that Lilo was still reading
it's conf from the old disk. So repartitioning the original disk -> it
would not boot anymore. (that's my guess anyway)

That is probably correct.

After much trouble, I thought I'm better off re-installing the whole
thing. Wrong again.

Well, at least I found out what was causing:
"mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/md0,
        or too many mounted file systems
        (could this be the IDE device where you in fact use
        ide-scsi so that sr0 or sda or so is needed?)"

It's giving this because raid was not properly loaded on startup (hope
this small tidbit will help someone).

Did you mean to copy this to the list? Or did you, and I just missed it?

PROBLEM:
After doing raidstart /dev/md0, my raid disk mounts just fine, and also
shows up nicely with /proc/mdstat. But I haven't figured out how could
I have it start up automatically on boot. I've understood that kernels
from 2.4. up should have raid automatically built in, not requiring any
init scripts. I've also tried kernel 2.6. (both kernels with ready
debian packages via apt-get). I know it's possible without compiling my
own kernel, I've got it working before (just don't know how).

Any input appriciated (hope someone got this far... )!

Cheers,

Timo

I recall reading somewhere that the raid has to be started upon boot, and that it wasn't enough to simply make sure the kernel has the proper drivers
loaded.  That doesn't jive with my experience, as I've got a RAID box
working, though I did have to compile the drivers into the kernel.

Given that, let's go over what I've got installed. I'm using raidtools2.
I've got /etc/raidtab as a symlink that points to /etc/raid/raidtab.
My /etc/fstab uses a RAID array as / and /boot. Based upon your message,
it looks like you've done all the above, too, right?

Now, the difference is down to the kernels. As I said, I compiled my own. I couldn't get the stock kernel to work, because it had to load the modules from the raid in order to see the raid. I don't have a link handy, but I
believe there's info on the Debian website that will give some details
about building a new initial ram disk.  That's what you'll need to do.
Make sure you put all modules that the kernel needs to view the raid into the initrd. Let me know if you need some pointers on that. I think I'm
going to try it myself, just to see if I can get my raid box to boot a
stock kernel.

Let us know how it goes.

Justin



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