Can't create partition on mdadm raid5 and images mounted over loopback

emat · 05-03-2007, 09:48 AM

Hi all,

I want to create a test environment for learning purposes. This is not a production setup of any kind:

Since I don't have 4 disks to use those to build my raid I want to use 4 files as a block device:

I created 4 files using:

Code:

dd if=/dev/zero of=disk0.dd bs=512k count=20
dd if=/dev/zero of=disk1.dd bs=512k count=20
dd if=/dev/zero of=disk2.dd bs=512k count=20
dd if=/dev/zero of=disk3.dd bs=512k count=20

I mounted these files as block devices doing:

Code:

losetup /dev/loop0 disk0.dd
losetup /dev/loop0 disk1.dd
losetup /dev/loop0 disk2.dd
losetup /dev/loop0 disk3.dd

I created a raid out of these disks using mdadm (The raid is online and looks healthy):

Code:

mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=5 --raid-devices=4 --auto=part /dev/loop[0123]

I want to create 1 simple primary partition on /dev/md0 so I can format it using ext3.
When doing this with fdisk /dev/md0 I can create the partition but when I write it I get:

Code:

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 22: Invalid argument.
The kernel still uses the old table.
The new table will be used at the next reboot.
Syncing disks.

I can't create that partition, or at lease, I can't activate that partition,.... there is no /dev/md0p1 anywhere.

stopping the raid and reassembling it doesn't work either,....

It could be a problem related to the fact that i'm using the loopback driver,....

So, how can I get a healthy working partition with this setup?

Any opinions about this?

rahulk · 05-03-2007, 01:01 PM

unfortunately, software RAID devices cannot be partitioned like a normal device. There have been patches prepared for doing that stuff, but I dont feel they have made it to standard distros. You have two options here:-

1. Use LVM on RAID devices like, md0, and then you can use it to resize or create partitions.
2. Build some more partitions on the disk drive and assign it to different RAID devices like md0 till md15.

I am wondering why have you created the files and then used it to build the software RAID. You can partition your disk and then build the block device.

Or instead, dont create any partition on md device. simply build the ext3 filesystem on it. e.g.

mke2fs -j /dev/md0

Hope this helps!!
Rahul Khare.

int0x80 · 06-11-2011, 01:23 PM

Actually you just need to use the offset. Check out this post: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...3/#post4382803