From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 21 12:56:46 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 01EB216A41F for ; Thu, 21 Jul 2005 12:56:46 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from freebsd@meijome.net) Received: from sigma.octantis.com.au (sigma.octantis.com.au [207.44.188.23]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8758D43D46 for ; Thu, 21 Jul 2005 12:56:45 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from freebsd@meijome.net) Received: (qmail 20391 invoked from network); 21 Jul 2005 22:56:44 +1000 Received: from unknown (HELO ?192.168.13.3?) (202.59.110.3) by sigma.octantis.com.au with (DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA encrypted) SMTP; 21 Jul 2005 22:56:44 +1000 Message-ID: <42DF9B87.2000708@meijome.net> Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 22:56:39 +1000 From: Norberto Meijome User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2 (Windows/20050317) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Stijn Hoop References: <42DF4A96.1080305@meijome.net> <20050721124049.GX72402@pcwin002.win.tue.nl> In-Reply-To: <20050721124049.GX72402@pcwin002.win.tue.nl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: FreeBSD Questions Subject: Re: Bootstrapping Raid 5 w/GEOM X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 12:56:46 -0000 Stijn Hoop wrote: > On Thu, Jul 21, 2005 at 05:11:18PM +1000, Norberto Meijome wrote: > >> >>I want to setup software Raid 5 , and I want it to affect ALL >>partitions, including / (so if any one of the drives fails, it will >>still boot up properly). I am planning on using GEOM, but open to >>suggestions. > > I don't think it's possible -- the loader doesn't know about the mirror > even in a mirrored / setup; it justs treats one of the disks of the mirror > as 'the boot disk'. It's not until the kernel is loaded that gvinum RAID-5 > can do something. Would the same be true (not possible to boot) for a RAID 1 + 0 with GEOM? > So, in your case, the loader would read random RAID-5 data instead of > a kernel and refuse to boot. > > IE, it's not possible until someone writes a RAID-5 capable loader. right - so that's why I couldnt find any reference to this anywhere :) > > I would advise you to either use gmirror for booting, or define a few > gvinum mirror plexes (it is possible to boot from a mirrored gvinum > setup although it's tricky to get right). I guess I could create a boot slice in 2 of the drives, mirror that with gmirror and use that to boot. Then RAID-5 the rest of the drives (minus the size of the boot partition in the other 2 drives of course). cheers, B