Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Wed, 20 Sep 2000 13:33:03 -0700
From:      Alfred Perlstein <bright@wintelcom.net>
To:        Fred Clift <fclift@verio.net>
Cc:        Edward Elhauge <ee@uncanny.net>, freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG, grog@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Frustration with SCSI system
Message-ID:  <20000920133303.I9141@fw.wintelcom.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0009201428350.14181-100000@vespa.orem.iserver.com>; from fclift@verio.net on Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 02:35:11PM -0600
References:  <200009202024.NAA45822@ns2.uncanny.net> <Pine.BSF.4.21.0009201428350.14181-100000@vespa.orem.iserver.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
* Fred Clift <fclift@verio.net> [000920 13:22] wrote:
> If you're willing to go through strange install contortions, you can boot
> off of an MFS (Or MD, depending on what version you use ) root filesystem
> (copies stored in separate partition, on both disks you are mirroring) and
> then have everything else mirrored.  Then at least your running system
> doesn't rely on any unmirrored disks.  You can put a minimal root
> filesystem in memory and then have the rest of the stuff moved out via
> either symlinks or via  just moving things around.  Ie if you want to set
> up a bunch of boxes, it's nice to have most of the rc bootup stuff really
> reside on the vinum'd user...
> 
> At any rate, from what I understand, it's the boot loader that doesn't
> understand vinum disks.  put a kernel and minimum stuff somewhere the
> bootloader can find it and then mirror the rest.  If one of the disks goes
> out, things keep working (root in memory, usr mirrored) and if you have to
> reboot, just make sure the good disk is the preferred boot device in your
> scsi bios.

[cc'd to Greg Lehey who wrote vinum]

Greg, I seem to remeber you being able to boot a vinum root mirror,
is there docco anywhere on this?  A cursory glance over
http://www.vinumvm.org/ doesn't reveal how you were able to pull
this off.

Another alternative is that for the most part / doesn't need to be
writeable with a few small exceptions that can be worked around,
even though it requires manual gyrations, one could mount / read-only
and make sure to have a spare disk that one syncs with whenever /
needs to be changed, the point being if you have hotswap you can
simply swap the disks and not loose any changes if you are diligent
about syncronising the disks.

-Alfred



To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20000920133303.I9141>