Setting up software RAID under sarge with a 2.6 kernel?
 

Hi,

I'm trying to set up a system with software RAID (probably 0, but maybe RAID-1) under sarge, which is running a 2.6.8-1 kernel, but I must admit that it's all new to me and a bit confusing. The machine's got 5 harddisks: an IDE one connected to the motherboard with the OS on it, and four others (identical) connected to a SATA controller (adaptec 1205SA, no h/w raid) which on installation were nominated as RAID disks. Now, I'd like to RAID those four disks but am not sure how to (google helps, but is not complete). From dmesg, these appear to have been set as SCSI devices sda, sdb, sdc and sdd, e.g:

scsi1 : sata_sil
Vendor: ATA Model: ST3160827AS Rev: 3.00
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05
SCSI device sda: 312581808 512-byte hdwr sectors (160042 MB)
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back
/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p1 < p5 >
Attached scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0

My question is: what do I have to do to get these four disks to work happily as a RAID resource? I presume I'm going to have to use mdadm, right? Any further clues?

I'm just a simple physicist who's been landed with this job...

m

OK, I figured it out. It's actually pretty simple.

Is that all?

You're also a shy physicist. Others might like to know your solution!

Bootable Software RAID1 on Debian
 

Debian's Sarge rc2 Installer can create and install / on bootable Software RAID. I did it recently but when I installed a custom 2.6.9 kernel I couldn't boot with it and had to boot with the generic 2.4 kernel Sarge had installed.

BTW, here is a HowTo Install Debian on bootable RAID1 that I helped edit a year ago (that was before the Sarge installer could do it) that is quite complicated but might be helpful to some folks:
http://alioth.debian.org/project/sho...release_id=288
(choose the latest version of the doc from that page)

Roger Chrisman