Re: SOLVED: Software-RAID1 on sarge (AMD64)

[Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de>]

Kilian <kil@gnu.ch> writes:

> Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
>> Kilian <kil@gnu.ch> writes:
>>
>>> In the last few days, I was struggling to convert a remote machine
>>> with two identical SATA disks (sda and sdb) to a Software RAID
>>> 1. Especially the boot-part was tricky as I had no console access to
>>> the machine. The whole procedure was done remotely via SSH. I use the
>>> md tools (mdadm) and lilo as bootloader. I chose LILO because IMHO
>>> it's more straightforward in this setup than GRUB and I have no other
>>> Operating Systems I would want to boot.
>>>
>>> The system was installed on the first disk, the second one has not
>>> been used before. Those are the steps I went through:
>>>
>>>
>>> 1.  Install a Software-RAID capable kernel and boot the system with it;
>>>      Install the md tools: 'apt-get install mdadm';
>> Meaning any Debian kernel. :)
>
> True, mine had it as a module though, which meant initrd, and since I
> was working remote, I didn't want to bring in another pitfall which
> meant compiling the kernel with RAID support built into it.

>>>      Important: both partitions need to be of the type 0xFD "Linux raid
>>>      autodetect"
>> Actualy not. mdadm can work just as well without it. Doesn't hurt
>> though.
>
> Didn't know that either, thanks.

If raid is buildin into the kernel and all the disk drivers for the
raid too then the type 0xFD causes the kernel to already detect and
start the raid. So you need no initrd and no mdadm to boot. So in your
case you DO need that. (PS: I prefer non initrd boot too and have the
same).

MfG
        Goswin