Re: howto install Debian on software RAID1 when UEFI?
On Sun, 2022-11-13 at 14:32 +0000, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 13, 2022 at 02:49:28PM +0100, hw wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > the Debian installer is horrible. It won't let me install on software RAID1
> > on
> > a server with an UEFI BIOS. I can't find any good guide about that, either.
> >
>
> Hi hw
>
> You might want to *start* with using the expert install - found under the
> advanced menu option. That will give you more control, including advanced
> partitioning.
That's where I kept ending up. I didn't want that, it needs to be easy to
install on software RAID. Not everyone has hardware RAID to boot from.
> > I want root on brtfs with RAID1. How do I get Debian installed?
>
> I'd suggest that you partition one disk with "all files in one partition"
> as a test run to see the sizes you'll need and then rerun the partitioner.
Yeah that failed. The installer was unable to install grub, then it was unable
to mount /boot/efi ... It's not working right at all.
> > From memory, I think you end up with something like an EFI partition of
> > 512M,
> a root partition of (the rest - 1G) and then a 1G swap.
>
> If you partition both disks to have an EFI partition at the beginning, then
> a RAID partition, then 2 x 1G swap at the end.
Yeah that's what I tried.
> Then use the RAID manager to set up RAID1 and LVM over the top.
There's no way that I would use LVM. That's yet another layer of complexitiy
with no advantages whatsoever and a nightmare to deal with. I used it once and
I'll never do that again.
> I'm unsure how
> you would install GRUB to the second disk of the RAID - it might be that you'd
> need to restart once the install is complete, use the rescue option and
> specifically install GRUB on the second disk of the RAID.
It used to be possible to just install it on the other disk. But I didn't get
that far.
After over half a day and some reboots, I finally got it to install on a single
disk without any redundancy. I'll have to partition the 2nd disk later after I
figured out how to add another IPv6 address to one of the interfaces --- easy
with network manager on Fedora (which also installs on software RAID),
impossible with Debian.
I won't be able to boot when the disk I installed on failed. In this case, it
doesn't matter too much, but if that was a remote server there would be no way
to get it installed without hardware RAID.
Debian really needs to work a lot on the installer. It used to be easy to
install Debian, but now it's a nightmare.
> >
> > The graphical version crashes with a kernel panic when booting from an USB
> > stick, so I need to use the normal installer.
>
> Then you have wider problems than just installation, perhaps?
>
No, why would you say that.
> > There's even not a way to select RAID1 for btrfs. What an anachronism ...
> >
>
> You do know that this is a general purpose installer that covers 12 or so
> filesystem types and allows for flexibility?
Fedoras installer does a better much job. I didn't want endless flexibility but
a simple standard installation on software RAID. That used to be easy with
Debian.
> With every good wish, as ever,
>
> Andy Cater
>
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