Moving my install from single disk to raid 1
 

If you want a quick run down as to WHY I want to do this, read here

Basically, my ISP could not get my server running stable on a simple raid 1 (or raid 5) so what it came down to was having them install my system on a single disk. I don't exactly like this, main reason being, if the system (or HDD) crashes, I'll end up with another several hours of down time... So here is my proposal:

Please Note: This will have to be accomplished on a live System (full backups!) over ssh as I don't trust my ISP to do things right as described in my post above.

Current Setup:
CentOS 5.3 x86_64
Dual Xeon 5410
16GB RAM
4x 750GB HDDs

/boot - /dev/sda1 - 512MB (real 471MB) ext3
/ - /dev/sda2 - 50GB (real 46GB) ext3
/home - /dev/sda3 - remaining space (real 642GB) ext3

swap - /dev/sdb1 - 32GB
/backup - /dev/sdb2 - remaining space (real 659GB) ext3

/dev/md0 - /dev/sdc + /dev/sdd - raid 1 (NOTE: uses entire disk, no partitions!)

Proposed Solution:
Now, I'd like to 'init 1' at this stage but I can't, so I won't (possible solutions?? Possible to umount the / partition??)

Assuming I'd have to do this on a fully live system, I'd disable all services that I can

Then we copy all of our data from the single partitions to the raid disks
(I think I covered everything)

Once we have everything copied, update /etc/fstab and /etc/mtab to reflect the changes we made:
vi /etc/fstab
To
Moving on, we make a fail safe in the event this doesn't work out:
find
add after
Then we find (in the same file):
Add before:
Where (hd3,0) is /dev/sdc. If the system fails to boot to the raid then it'll auto boot to the single disk (/dev/sda)

then update my ramdisk:

And now to set up grub...
we should see something like this:
Again, we should see something like this:
From here I think we're ready to reboot, can't see where I missed anything. If all goes well then I should see my volume groups listed in 'df- h'

Now, the big question is... have I missed anything?

Any and all input is greatly appreciated.

Man... I feel with you. I read thru the first page of your post on the other forum. It must drive you insane if the "support" people only seem to follow a flowchart to answer you. No matter how many times you call...

Anyway, since you are using CentOS, I am not quite familiar with your OS and the tools it provides. What I miss in your sequence is the usual sequence of creating a new array with a missing disk.

Usually you would have two disks in you machine, one running the OS, the other one part of the raid-to-be. You would create the raid from the empty disk, telling the second one is missing. Once you have that incomplete array, you would copy your old one onto the new incomplete array. As a last step you would boot from the incomplete array, nuke the original disk and add it to the array to become complete now.

When I did this, I followed this guide: http://www200.pair.com/mecham/raid/r...aded-etch.html and as a reference this one: http://wiki.yobi.be/wiki/Debian_Soft_Raid

I know it is Debian, but I hope at least the steps taken will help you as a checklist, and maybe provide you with some ideas.

The author of the www200.pair.com page is very careful and takes a number of intermediate testing steps. Switching to single user is not necessary despite of what the author writes. You only have the chance that you miss some data which is added after you start the RAID for the first time, and the copying of the contents of the old disk. Your idea to switch off services during this time is excellent, because it prevents data corruption. But it only need to be the service which might be writing on the disk.

Your step to install grub once on each disk instead of a dd copy action is also mandatory. If you don't do that the RAID driver will complain.

Just for fun I did the entire RAIDing over ssh from my desk instead of going into the server room.

Last but not least, you should try this once on a server which sits on your desk before you do this on your co-located server. Just have the same partition scheme, but of course with the smaller hard disks.

good luck
jlinkels

Hi, thanks for your feedback. Being I had 4 disks already I decided to skip the broken array part, and would be starting with a fully working array. I wonder if this would make things more difficult however. Basically, the idea follows similar suit to those guides you listed but skips a few steps.