Final questions before test
 

Well I have the software raid level 1 working and up and running. It boots fines. I have two questions before I do the cowboy test.

1. I have a swap partition set on one of the drives but not on the other. Should I and or can I mirror the swap partion? Or should I just create a swap partition of the same size on the second drive?

2. If on drive fails will it boot as long as I have a /boot partition set to active on each of the drives?

3. My last question is should I do the cowboy test and unplug a drive while the system is running to see if the mirror is working or is there another way to test it?

Gary M.

Slowly and pain stakingly becoming Yoda.....

hmm... tough decisions and questions... id like to say...

1. your swap partitions would probably be the same size... should be atleast... that way your hdd will have the same partition sizes and will cause less confusion on a full hdd.

2. i would assume so since the raid controller initiates right after bios and will read what the setup is and take actions according.

3. i would say no for the simple fact of chance to damaging something... i'm not gonna be a part of this one...

Results
 

Well I reconfiged a portion of the second drive.

=====
fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hdd: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdd1 * 1 1912 15358108+ fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hdd2 1913 11473 76798732+ fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hdd3 11474 17847 51199155 fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hdd4 17848 19122 10241437+ 82 Linux swap

Disk /dev/hda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 1912 15358108+ fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hda2 1913 11473 76798732+ fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hda3 11474 17847 51199155 fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hda4 17848 19122 10241437+ 82 Linux swap


My two drives are laid out the same now.
=====

When I shutdown my box and unpluged hdd and restarted it booted fine. When I shutdown again and rebooted with hda uplugged it did not boot to grub and then start. As you can see I have both hda1 hdd1 set bootable. What could be my problem?

Second what do I have to do to make the autosynch of a mirror work when it is outof sync. When you unplug a drive and look at /proc/mdstat it only shows one drive and even when both are plugged in after it doesn't just reconstruct the mirror. I had to use raidhotadd /dev/md0 /dev/hdd3 for it to start and resynch the mirror. Is there something that can monitor this and keep them in synch?

Still need help on this
 

Well I reconfiged a portion of the second drive.

=====
fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hdd: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdd1 * 1 1912 15358108+ fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hdd2 1913 11473 76798732+ fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hdd3 11474 17847 51199155 fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hdd4 17848 19122 10241437+ 82 Linux swap

Disk /dev/hda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 1912 15358108+ fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hda2 1913 11473 76798732+ fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hda3 11474 17847 51199155 fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hda4 17848 19122 10241437+ 82 Linux swap


My two drives are laid out the same now.
=====
My last two questions....

1. When I shutdown my box and unpluged hdd and restarted it booted fine. When I shutdown again and rebooted with hda uplugged it did not boot to grub and then start. As you can see I have both hda1 hdd1 set bootable. What could be my problem?

2. What do I have to do to make the autosynch of a mirror work when it is outof sync. When you unplug a drive and look at /proc/mdstat it only shows one drive and even when both are plugged in after it doesn't just reconstruct the mirror. I had to use raidhotadd /dev/md0 /dev/hdd3 for it to start and resynch the mirror. Is there something that can monitor this and keep them in synch?