[ale] Grub and auxiliary boot partition

[Jeff Lightner]

I can't imagine why anyone would prefer software RAID over hardware RAID
(mirroring at least) on /boot.  For performance reasons alone it would
be preferable and as posted by Greg it allows you to ignore dealing with
grub because grub sees the RAID LUN not the individual disks.

-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Jeff
Hubbs
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 10:23 PM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!
Subject: Re: [ale] Grub and auxiliary boot partition

Greg -

I didn't mention the 24 additional disk drives and three 3Ware 8-drive 
controllers because they weren't germane to my question. :) 

I prefer not to rely on RAID for /boot. 

- Jeff

Greg Freemyer wrote:
> Jeff,
>
> I use a 2-disk 3ware controller specifically for my server boot
drives.
>
> Seems like a 2-disk controller is about $100 and it prevents you
> worrying about grub issues.
>
> Greg
>
> On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 11:21 AM, Jeff Hubbs <jeffrey.hubbs at gmail.com>
wrote:
>   
>> I have a server with two disks that I use for booting and rooting -
sda and
>> sdb.  I partition them like this:
>>
>> |--sda1=/boot-----|--sda2 (type fd)------------------------|
>>
>> |--sdb1=/auxboot--|--sdb2 (type fd)------------------------|
>>
>> sdb1 and sdb2 are made into md0 in kernel RAID 1 and md0 is mounted
as /.
>> sda1 and sdb1 have the bootable flag set.  /auxboot holds the same
files as
>> /boot.
>>
>> I want to have things such that if sda is dead, grub can be told to
boot
>> entirely using just sdb.
>>
>> When I install grub, I envision these commands:
>>
>> grub> root (hd0,0)
>>
>> grub> setup (hd0)
>> grub> root (hd1,0)
>> grub> setup (hd1)
>>
>>
>> Does that look like it will do what I want, acknowledging that the
settings
>> in grub.conf in /boot
>> would come up and therefore would have to be changed by hand in the
grub
>> start menu before actually
>>
>> booting?
>>
>> If so, I expect I could do away with the human intervention by
putting sda
>> and sdb in the BIOS'
>> boot list in that order, changing the grub.conf in /auxboot to use
sdb2 as
>> /, and then running the
>>
>> grub commands above.
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>> - Jeff
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Ale mailing list
>> Ale at ale.org
>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>>
>>
>>     
>
>
>
>   

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