[plug] Root/Boot on Software RAID

[Andrew Furey]

> All RAID devices are detected at boot when using a
> standard partition as root, however the kernel
> complains that it cannot read the superblock when
> trying to boot with root=/dev/md0.

I presume you're using LILO to boot? The problem is
not with /, so much as with /boot.

AFAIK, LILO can't boot off a RAID 1 device because it
doesn't know how to handle it.

Try making a separate (non-RAID) boot partition. It
should then grab the kernel image from that, set the
root partition correctly, and you're away. If you set
the boot device to be mounted read-only by default
(and only remount read-write when you need to change
it, if at all) it should be fairly crash-proof.

Having said that, I heard rumours of a new (patched
maybe?) version of LILO which _can_ boot off a RAID 1
device, but I don't know whether any distros use it by
default. Also things may have changed in 2.4 (I use
2.2.18 on that system, with RAID patches obviously).

Hope this helps
Andrew


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