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  -o)/ /  (_)__  __ ____  __      Derek Winterstien
  /\\ /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ /      r.o.a.c.h.@.r.o.b.o.t.z...c.o.m
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Linux Software RAID - An unorganized and random comments page which
may or may not be helpful to you.         Created: Mon Mar 29 18:28:01 CST 2004

(*). A RAID 5 Example                       ###################################
/boot on the boot partition cannot be       #                         cmd ref #
RAID 5.  This is a limitation in Linux      # vi /etc/raidtab                 #
software raid.  For this example I have     # dmesg                           #
3 IDE harddrives set up for RAID level      # cat /proc/mdstat                #
five and a seperate raid partition for      # raidhotadd /dev/mdN /dev/hdXN   #
the following:                              # raidhotremove                   #
                                            # lsraid -a /dev/mdN              #
/boot assigned to md0 with RAID level 1     # lsraid -A -d /dev/hdcN          #
/tmp  assigned to md2 with RAID level 5     # raidstop                        #
/     assigned to md3 with RAID level 5     # raidsetfaulty                   #
/home assigned to md4 with RAID level 5     # mkraid -f (dangerous!)          #
                                            # badblocks                       #
and the linux swap partition on md1         # mount /proc /proc -t proc       #
raid level 5                                #                                 #
                                            ###################################
Three harddrives are hda, hdb, and hdc.

md0 is a raid partition, consisting of 
hda1, hdb1, and hdc1.  A complete table 
of raid partitions with drive 
assignments is as follows:

hda1 + hdb1 + hdc1 assigned to md0 (/boot)
hda2 + hdb2 + hdc2 assigned to md4 (/home)
hda3 + hdb3 + hdc3 assigned to md3 (/)
hda5 + hdb5 + hdc5 assigned to md2 (/tmp)
hda6 + hdb6 + hdc6 assigned to md1 (swap)

(Q). Did everything load ok with RAID when I booted?

Take a look at the boot messages and see for yourself.  Type the following 
command at the console: 'dmesg|less'

(Q). Hows RAID doing now? or Has a drive died while its running?

Take a look at the raid status by typing the following command at the console:
'cat /proc/mdstat'

(Q). What does it mean when I see "kicking hda1" or "kicking" whatever in the
dmesg and RAID / the system will not start?

Looks like you have a bad drive or the drive is fine but RAID seems to think 
there is a problem.  See which drive was kicked and try using the following 
command to add it back into the array:  'raidhotadd /dev/md0 /dev/hda1'
replacing md0 with the array that the drive was kicked from and hda1 with the
actual drive that was kicked from that array.  Be careful not to accidently
use raidhotadd to add a drive partition into the wrong array.  Linux/RAID will
let you do this but you will regret it.

raidhotadd and raidhotremove will only work on a running array.  If only 1 out 
of the 3 drive partitions are functioning within an array, then raidhotadd and
raidhotremove are useless.

You can usually tell what drive belongs to what array by looking at your RAID 
configuration file, which is /etc/raidtab. 

(*). Useful command summary:
vi /etc/raidtab
dmesg
cat /proc/mdstat
raidhotadd /dev/md? /dev/hd??
raidhotadd
raidhotremove
lsraid -a /dev/md0
lsraid -A -d /dev/hdc2

(man). lsraid usage examples  

       lsraid -A -a /dev/md0
           Display a short listing of the md0 device.

       lsraid -A -d /dev/sda1
           Display a short listing of the array that sda1 belongs to.

       lsraid -A -f -a /dev/md0
           Display the failed devices belonging to the md0 device.

       lsraid -D -l -a /dev/md0
           Display a long dump of the on-disk md superblock of every disk in
           md0.

       lsraid -D -a /dev/md0 -d /dev/sda1
           Display a short discription of the disks in md0 as well as a short
           description of the disk sda1.  sda1 will only be described once if
           it belongs to md0.

       lsraid -R -a /dev/md0 -a /dev/md1 -a /dev/md2
           Display a description of the arrays in an output format suitable
           for using in raidtab(5) files.  Note that if md0 and md1 are raid0
           arrays and md2 is a raid1 created from md0 and md1, this command
           will output the information in the correct order.

       lsraid -R -p
           Scan all block devices in /proc/partitions and display all discov-
           ered md devices in a format suitable for using in raidtab(5) files.






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