RAID10 and Kickstart

Discussion:

Philip Molter

2003-10-30 16:05:14 UTC

How do you setup a RAID10 array in a kickstart file? I have two
controllers with 8 drives each. I want to something like:

c0p7 - c1p0 : md0

c0p1 - c1p1 : md1
c0p2 - c1p2 : md2
c0p3 - c1p3 : md3
c0p4 - c1p4 : md4
c0p5 - c1p5 : md5
c0p6 - c1p6 : md6
c0p7 - c1p7 : md7

md1 - md2 - md3 - md4 - md5 - md6 - md7 : md8

Put /boot on md0 and put everything else on md8 (a simplified case).
Is this even possible with a kickstart file? The kickstart examples
all assume you'll be creating either a raid0 or a raid1 or a raid5,
but not a raid10.

Philip

* Philip Molter
* Texas.Net Internet
* http://www.texas.net/
* ***@texas.net

Aaron M Morrison

2003-10-30 17:48:38 UTC

Permalink

hmmmm
I assume you want to do this w/ Software raid?
Last time I set up anything w/ software raid it DID NOT support RAID 10
although that could have certainly changed by now.
Also, it forced you to run either raid 1 or 5 for / and /boot

I prefer to keep /boot and / out of a complicated raid array
and save that for the data,
ie, run 2x18gb scsi or equiv ide drives raid 1 for /boot and /
this gives you plenty of room for installs, software, etc,
and if you have hardware problems or filesystem corruption
that prevents the data raid from working, you can still boot the system
to fix things.

just my .02$ worth...

amm

Post by Philip Molter
How do you setup a RAID10 array in a kickstart file? I have two
c0p7 - c1p0 : md0
c0p1 - c1p1 : md1
c0p2 - c1p2 : md2
c0p3 - c1p3 : md3
c0p4 - c1p4 : md4
c0p5 - c1p5 : md5
c0p6 - c1p6 : md6
c0p7 - c1p7 : md7
md1 - md2 - md3 - md4 - md5 - md6 - md7 : md8
Put /boot on md0 and put everything else on md8 (a simplified case).
Is this even possible with a kickstart file? The kickstart examples
all assume you'll be creating either a raid0 or a raid1 or a raid5,
but not a raid10.
Philip
* Philip Molter
* Texas.Net Internet
* http://www.texas.net/
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Philip Molter

2003-10-31 02:22:52 UTC

Permalink

On Thu, Oct 30, 2003 at 10:48:38AM -0700, Aaron M Morrison wrote:
: hmmmm
: I assume you want to do this w/ Software raid?
: Last time I set up anything w/ software raid it DID NOT support RAID 10
: although that could have certainly changed by now.
: Also, it forced you to run either raid 1 or 5 for / and /boot

Yeah, as far as I could tell, there was no way, kickstart or
otherwise, to install a system on to a RAID10 array. The problem
is, I have two controllers with 8 120GB drives each, and the only
configs that make sense are a stripe of mirrors between the two
controllers (/boot would be its on RAID1 array with a small
partition from the first drive on each controller) or a RAID5 of
all the drives (again, /boot on its own small RAID1).

The former can't be done in kickstart, although I can setup a large
RAID10 data partition during the %post run. The latter is great,
except with these controllers, I have a problem with corruption
when the RAID5 array drops a bad drive.

Short answer: no.

* Philip Molter
* Texas.Net Internet
* http://www.texas.net/
* ***@texas.net

David Aikema

2003-10-31 02:33:18 UTC

Permalink

Hi

Could you perhaps do something by using a %pre script to create the desired
partitions? You might then be able to in the kickstart scrip then use some
"partition /mount-point --parton=md?"

David Aikema

Post by Philip Molter
: hmmmm
: I assume you want to do this w/ Software raid?
: Last time I set up anything w/ software raid it DID NOT support RAID 10
: although that could have certainly changed by now.
: Also, it forced you to run either raid 1 or 5 for / and /boot
Yeah, as far as I could tell, there was no way, kickstart or
otherwise, to install a system on to a RAID10 array. The problem
is, I have two controllers with 8 120GB drives each, and the only
configs that make sense are a stripe of mirrors between the two
controllers (/boot would be its on RAID1 array with a small
partition from the first drive on each controller) or a RAID5 of
all the drives (again, /boot on its own small RAID1).
The former can't be done in kickstart, although I can setup a large
RAID10 data partition during the %post run. The latter is great,
except with these controllers, I have a problem with corruption
when the RAID5 array drops a bad drive.
Short answer: no.
* Philip Molter
* Texas.Net Internet
* http://www.texas.net/
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Kickstart-list mailing list
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/kickstart-list

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Aaron M Morrison

2003-10-31 15:45:16 UTC

Permalink

Actually, I think it can be done, essentially just how you wanted to do
it, but a little simpler.
Since what you want to do is create software raid 1 of hardware raid 0's
Create identical hardware raid 0 sets on each controllers
for example
c0p1 = 128mb, c1p1 = 128mb
c0p2 = 8192mb, c1p2 = 8192mb
c0p3 = 2047mb, c1p3 = 2047mb
c0p4 = rest of disk, c1p4 = rest of disk

in software raid,
you would create raid 1 set's of
c0p1 - c1p1 : /boot
c0p2 - c1p2 : /
c0p3 - c1p3 : swap
c0p4 - c1p4: /data(ie rest of disk)

you get the idea...

So really your kickstart would only have to know about raid 1 setup
since the raid 0 would be handled by the controllers.

Unless of course, both your controllers only support jbod,
then I think you should be looking into lvm

amm

Philip Molter

2003-11-06 14:22:46 UTC

Permalink

On Fri, Oct 31, 2003 at 08:45:16AM -0700, Aaron M Morrison wrote:
: Actually, I think it can be done, essentially just how you wanted to do
: it, but a little simpler.
: Since what you want to do is create software raid 1 of hardware raid 0's
: Create identical hardware raid 0 sets on each controllers

Actually, what I want to do is create software raid 0's of hardware
raid 1's, because that gives greater redundancy. I can't do hardware
raid 1's, though, because they span multiple controllers.

And RedHat's official word on this is that kickstart doesn't support
raid-on-raid, and they have no plans to do so.

Thank you for the suggestions, though,
Philip

* Philip Molter
* Texas.Net Internet
* http://www.texas.net/
* ***@texas.net

Chris Adams

2003-11-06 15:05:18 UTC

Permalink

Post by Philip Molter
And RedHat's official word on this is that kickstart doesn't support
raid-on-raid, and they have no plans to do so.

You could use LVM striping. You have to do a little extra work to get
it (because anaconda only does LVM concatenation by default; see the
archives for my solution), but then you could put LVM on top of software
RAID mirrors. I'm doing this and it seems to work just fine.

--
Chris Adams <***@hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.

Jesse Keating

2003-11-06 18:05:49 UTC

Permalink

Post by Philip Molter
And RedHat's official word on this is that kickstart doesn't support
raid-on-raid, and they have no plans to do so.

I would think that it's softwareraid-on-softwareraid. Software-raid on
hardware-raid seems to be just software raid across a couple SCSI devices.
I have duplicated this exact configuration manually in the installer, I
see no reason what so ever that would keep kickstart from doing the same
thing.

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