Problem with external RAID
Hi,
I've been fighting a couple of days trying to set up a debian machine and an
external RAID to work with debian.
The configuration is:
A dell poweredge 850 server with two serial ata drives.
A LSI PCI SCSI Controller, that works under linux.
a EonStor RAID, connected to the scsi controller using a cable.
the thing is, after using the last kernel, we managed to make the scsi card
work correctly. Apparently there are some bugs in the previous versions of
the kernel/drivers for the scsi card that create some problems when trying to
access a device. We had those with an earlier version of the kernel and got
it fixed by using 2.6.17.4.
So, we are using etch on this server in order to recognize all the hardware.
Everything is working flawlessly (apparently). The sata drives are mapped by
default to /dev/sda and /dev/sdb and that's how we installed debian. But the
problem arises when we connect the external RAID to the system.
The thing is that the system randomly assigns the device /dev/sdc and /dev/sda
to the RAID, so, sometimes it boots perfectly (when it is /dev/sdc) and some
others, the boot process aborts (when it is /dev/sda) because the linux is
not finding the / partitions (as the sata disks are now located at /dev/sdb
and /dev/sdc).
From what I have been reading, the system loads the modules asynchronously
using udev (I guess) and so that's why the RAID is assigned /dev/sda
or /dev/sdc. I've been trying to figure out how to set the order at which I'd
like the modules to be loaded, but with no luck. I've been trying to define a
couple of rules at /etc/udev/rules.d/ in order to change the devices
assigned, but all I get are some symlinks to the real devices in /dev but the
problem continues to be there.
So, I would really appreciate if someone could give some hints on how to alter
the order at which the devices are defined as I am a little bit lost.
I don't know if it has something to do with initrd images, or udev, hotplug or
the order at which the modules are loaded at boot time. Any hint would be
appreciated, ;) really.
I've also been thinking about getting rid of udev, but I don't want to create
a complete mess as I don't really know if this is really I should be doing.
--
Jesús Roncero Franco
http://localhost
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