[vox-tech] Software IDE Root RAID on Linux

[Stephen M. Helms]

Bill Broadley wrote:
{snip}
> [bill@bilbo bill]$ cat /etc/redhat-release
> Red Hat Linux release 7.2 (Enigma)
> [bill@bilbo bill]$ df
> Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
> /dev/md1              25316412   9936080  14094332  42% /
> /dev/md0              25316412  15296880   8733532  64% /d0
> none                    256804         0    256804   0% /dev/shm
> [bill@bilbo bill]$ cat /proc/mdstat
> Personalities : [linear] [raid0] [raid1] [raid5]
> read_ahead 1024 sectors
> md0 : active raid1 hdc2[1] hda2[0]
>       25720000 blocks [2/2] [UU]
> 
> Just select Make raid at the partition screen and assign it to /.
> 
> BTW I recommend checking that root receives email, cp /proc/mdstat to /var/mdstate; then setup a crontab:
> 0,15,30,45 * * * * /usr/bin/diff /proc/mdstat /var/mdstat
> 
> That way if the raid loses a disk you get email every 15 minutes, of course
> this doesn't help much unless your using a redundant mirror (anything but
> raid-0).

This makes perfect sense on a production machine, not needed in my
case.  I will remember for further reference for sure.

Bill:  How do you handle swap partitions on this machine?

Brian:  From the how-to it says you can not do swap on a RAID-1,4 or 5
(section 2.4).  They recommend just stripping swap across the drives.

Ryan:  What type of configuration of RAID are you running.

I was planning on using Debian Woody for this system, but may go with
Mandrake or Red Hat depending on what my coworker wants to learn.  He
prefers netbsd.

Does anyone slice up there drives into non-raid partitions for different
uses like swap or for the root partition and then use the remaining free
space for RAID.  I am just curious on the ways different people set
things up.

Thanks alot for all of the info and help,
Stephen