From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Nov 14 15:32:12 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BAF2B16A4CF; Fri, 14 Nov 2003 15:32:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (critter.freebsd.dk [212.242.86.163]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B092F4401F; Fri, 14 Nov 2003 15:32:11 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from phk@phk.freebsd.dk) Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by critter.freebsd.dk (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id hAENWAfO009495; Sat, 15 Nov 2003 00:32:10 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from phk@phk.freebsd.dk) To: Josef Karthauser From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 14 Nov 2003 23:20:09 GMT." <20031114232009.GA31237@genius.tao.org.uk> Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 00:32:10 +0100 Message-ID: <9494.1068852730@critter.freebsd.dk> cc: current@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Using Geom to mirror root partitions? X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 23:32:12 -0000 In message <20031114232009.GA31237@genius.tao.org.uk>, Josef Karthauser writes: >I've got a machine with two drives 120gb drives, which is going to a >colo. If I configure it to use one drive, will I at some point be able >to remotely reconfigure it to say use the second drive as a mirror as >the physical layer, i.e. if the first drive goes bang then I can get the >second drive to boot via the bios and still have the machine work - or >am I dreaming? The main problem here (currently) is the bootblocks and /etc/fstab. We had some work on geom_mirror recently which I have not yet had time to look at. If that is done right, it should be possible to set it up like you say. In order to "fool" the bootblocks, geom_mirror would have to be able to use a meta-data sector at the end of the partition rather than at the beginning. With that in place it should "just work", since the device in /etc/fstab would then be the geom_mirror device and GEOM should be able to offer that for root mounting. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.