Slackware 10.2 boot from SATA RAID1?

Rexxars · 01-03-2006, 11:47 AM

Hi there, first post, hope this is not too dumb a question.

I'm new to RAID and Linux, but I want to learn. Been wanting to set up a fileserver for a while, and I decided to try to set it up using Slackware 10.2.

I want to have a RAID1 setup for my most important files, along with the OS (which I hope is possible). Already made a RAID1 array of two equally big Seagate SATA disks, and booted the Slackware installation using sata.i - it installs fine, but when I get to setting up LILO, I seem to have messed up.

Is it even possible to install and boot an OS on a RAID1 setup? I tried to have Slackware set it all up for me, which resulted in a L 09 09 09 error when I rebooted. Not sure wether I should set it up on the MBR or on disk either, concidering it's a RAID setup and all. Tried to find some info on this on the net, but most of the information I find seem to be about software-RAID, or how to set up LILO properly on already running Linux distributions. This doesn't help a lot when I can't edit lilo.conf

I guess my real questions on this subject are:
Can I boot Linux from a RAID1 setup?
How do I set up LILO to boot from said RAID1 setup?
How would you have set up the partitions (seperate partition for /boot?)

Any help with this would be well appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Finlay · 01-04-2006, 03:18 PM

Can I boot Linux from a RAID1 setup? yes
How do I set up LILO to boot from said RAID1 setup? either
How would you have set up the partitions (seperate partition for /boot?) no

when you were asked what kernel you wanted to install on the system, are you sure you chose the sata.i ?

also we will want to check the /etc/lilo.conf file to make sure the correct device information is in there

Rexxars · 01-06-2006, 11:04 AM

Thanks for the answer.

Yes, I'm very sure I installed sata.i. The slackware setup seems to choose whichever kernel you picked when you booted from CD. And I've tried to install it several times, only to have the same result thrown at me every time.

I actually tried to install Ubuntu today (hoping it would setup lilo for me correctly so I could rip its configuration), but it seems that Ubuntu use GRUB, not to mention that after installing, it rebooted and just stopped while displaying "GRUB" on screen.

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Ubuntu didn't even let me configure anything (thats actually why I tried to use it, hoping it would "do the right thing", so I couldn't have messed up any settings related to the installation either.

Here's how my fdisk -l shows my setup:

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 164.6 GB, 164696555520 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 20023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device    Boot  Start  End       Blocks    Id  System
/dev/sda1 *     1      1206     9767488+   83  Linux
/dev/sda2       1217  20023   151067227+   5   Extended
/dev/sda5       1217   1341     1004031    82  Linux swap
/dev/sda6       1342   6204    39062016    83  Linux
/dev/sda7       6205   7420     9767488+   83  Linux
/dev/sda8       7421  20023   101233566    83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 164.6 GB, 164696555520 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 20023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table

Hmm, does this mean that my mirroring isen't set up correctly?
Shouldn't partitioning sda also partition sdb in the same way?

I tried to partition sdb the same way as sda, didn't make any difference.

The lilo.conf that liloconfig produce is:

Code:

boot = /dev/sda
prompt
timeout = 50
vga = normal
image = /boot/vmlinuz
  root = /dev/sda1
  label = slackware
  read-only

Am I supposed to use sata.i? or raid.i?