If you use RedHat, see the
Howto set up RedHat
section in Appendix H. I have not tried this. If you use it successfully,
please let me know so I can update this document.
If you don't want to try and build and debug the rescue system, you can get
a generic one created from Slackware-3.4 from:
ftp.bizsystems.com/pub/raid/raidboot-0.01.tar.gz
Perform the following steps:
Compile the raid enabled kernel with
built in support for your disk subsystem
Test that the raid array will configure and mount correctly
Build your OS on the raid system
Correct the entries in fstab to show /dev/md0 as the
root device. Make sure that the partition(s) you use for booting are included in
fstab.
Copy the following from you development filesystem
to the rescue system AND the new raid system
cd /root/raidboot
mkdir mnt
gzip -d rescue.clean
losetup /dev/loop0 rescue.clean
mount /dev/loop0 mnt
copy these files
cp -p /etc/* mnt/etc
cp -p /etc/rc.d/* mnt/etc/rc.d
{or as appropriate for your system}
cp -a /lib/modules/* mnt/lib/modules
Some Linux distributions include a test for the ro/rw status of the
root file system. The rc startup files need to
have this test removed for the initrd rescue system. See the instructions in
the section on
Correctons for Rescue System.
Correct the entries in fstab to show /dev/md0 as the root
device. Make sure that the partition(s) you use for booting is included in
fstab.
Create /etc/raidboot.conf which describes the raid boot
configuration. This file may NOT contain comments in the first three
lines, after that it doesn't matter.
raidboot.conf
/dev/sda1 /dev/sda2
raidboot
raid5.conf
# comments may only be placed 'after' the three
# configuration lines.
#
# This is '/etc/raidboot.conf'
#
# line one, the partition(s) containing the 'initrd' raid-rescue system
# It is not necessary to boot from these partitions, however,
# since the rescue system will not fit on floppy, it is necessary
# to know which partitions are to be used to load the rescue system
#
# line two, the path to the raidboot config information
# Where the shutdown status, etc... is located at boot time
# It does NOT include the mount point information, only 'path'
# /mntpoint/'path'
#
# line -3-, name of the raid configuration file
# Current raid configuration file i.e. raid1.conf, raid5.conf
A few more things to do and the raid systems is ready to boot.
Create
rc.raidown, as described in Appendix F,
and copy it to /etc/rc.d on the rescue, development, and raid system.
Unmount the rescue system and zip it.