Prblm: software RAID boot, FreeBSD panic.

Ola Theander · *nix forums beginner Joined: 07 Feb 2005 Posts: 4

Dear subscribers

I'm trying to setup an old Dell Dimension computer as a simple file server
in a small network. For this I've purchased two ATA-disks at 200 GB each.
The idea is to use the software RAID features of FreeBSD to have some
primitive redundancy. The computer doesn't have any RAID controller
whatsoever so I'm stuck with just plain software RAID.

What I tried to do is to use "atacontroller create mirror ad0 ad1" to create
mirroring between the two disks. Then I installed FreeBSD 5.3 stable as
usual on ad0. When the installation was finished I booted the OS and edited
the /etc/fstab file, replacing all "ad0*" with "ar0*" and rebooted. I.e
fstab is changed to this:

# Device Mountpoint FStype Options Dump Pass#
/dev/ar0s1b none swap sw 0 0
/dev/ar0s1a / ufs rw 1 1
/dev/ar0s1e /tmp ufs rw 2 2
/dev/ar0s1f /usr ufs rw 2 2
/dev/ar0s1d /var ufs rw 2 2
/dev/acd0 /cdrom cd9660 ro,noauto 0 0

At the boot, after changing fstab, the kernel panics and says:

ar0: 194xxxxxxxx MB <ATA RAID 1 array> [24792/255/63] Status: READY
subdisks:

disk0 READY on ad0 at ata0-master
disk1 READY on ad1 at ata0-slave

mounting root from ufs: /dev/ar0s1a
/: bad dir at ino 2 at offset 0: mangled entry
..
..
init: not found in path .
panic: no init

That's it. Any help with this matter would be greatly appreciated. From
reading some posting I figure that I maybe must have a RAID controller, e.g.
a Promise, in order to use "atacontrol ." software RAID. In that case, that
might be the problem.

Would this be the best way to configure software RAID. It seems like there
are several different techniques for this e.g. vinum, atacontrol, geom,
gmirror etc. Which one of these is the recommended one? Note that I would
like to be able to boot the RAID1 array, i.e. I don't want a separate boot
hd if it can be avoided.

Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards, Ola Theander

David · *nix forums Guru Joined: 19 Feb 2005 Posts: 534

My personal advise is to use a different way (that I use always for my
servers); it will be a bit longer but working 101% of the times!
Sorry for my english if it is not clear!

Start from zero: put in a FreeBSD cdrom and launch an installation.
choice ad0 as hard disk where to install the FreeBSD.
I suppose your Hard Drive are 'ad0' and 'ad1' respectively.
Do not choice 'ad1' or any other: I mean use only 1 disk at this time,
forget about create/install into a RAID. Imagine to have just one hard
disk, okay?
Install Standard Boot Manager.
As slices partitions, choice the default.
As installation type, you can choice "minimal".
All these are not important for you at the moment, due you will go for
a new custom-made installation later.
If you are working on the PC (not from remote), you can avoid at this
point to setup network card and anything else. just setup the root
password.
Remove the cdrom and reboot!
FreeBSD will reboot using 'ad0' only.
Wait till the login prompt.
Login as 'root' and type the following :
'atacontrol create RAID1 ad0 ad1'
put in the FreeBSD cdrom again and reboot.
Restart a second installation and when prompted for destination, you
will see
'ad0'
'ad1'
'ar0' (this ir your raid 1)
Of couse choice 'ar0' and forget about 'ad0' and 'ad1'
Boot manager and slice only for 'ar0'. Forget that you have 'ad0'
'ad1'.
Proceed with the installation type you like and configuration as well.
After that remove again the cdrom and reboot.
FreeBSD will boot from your newly created RAID1.
Don't believe ?
Shutdown, off-the-pc, unplug the 'ad1' from M/Board and reboot!
You will receive a message during boot that your RAID1 have the 'slave'
problems, but FreeBSD will be there at the login prompt.
Try again with 'ad0' and you will be still able to boot with a message
of 'master' problems and FreeBSD still there at the login prompt.

It's a long way to go but always working very good!
I still prefer ATACONTROL versus GMIRROR.

Ciao
David

Ola Theander · *nix forums beginner Joined: 07 Feb 2005 Posts: 4

Hi David

Thank you for your answer. I'll try it but do you think that I can follow
your procedure even though I already used "atacontrol create mirror"? Can I
undo my previous operation in some way? The way I tried to do it was to
create the mirror using the fix-it cd before installing, and it's this
operation that maybe has to be undone.

Kind regards, Ola Theander

"David" <david19702004@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1107745277.555952.118340@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

David · *nix forums Guru Joined: 19 Feb 2005 Posts: 534

Ola Theander wrote:

Google