Bootstrapping Raid 5 w/GEOM

[Norberto Meijome]

Daniel Marsh wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Jul 2005 15:11:18 +0800, Norberto Meijome 
> <freebsd at meijome.net>  wrote:
> 
>> Hi all,
>> I have a box with 4 x 120 GB EIDE drives which I want to convert to  
>> FreeBSD 5.4 ( it's an old SNAP 4500 from Snap Appliance, now owned by  
>> Adaptec, running a custom build of Linux)
>>
>> I want to setup software Raid 5 , and I want it to affect ALL  
>> partitions, including / (so if any one of the drives fails, it will  
>> still boot up properly). I am planning on using GEOM, but open to  
>> suggestions.

> 
> 
> See gmirror and geom.
> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=gmirror&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+5.4-RELEASE+and+Ports&format=html 
> 
> 
> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=geom&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+5.4-RELEASE+and+Ports&format=html 

Thanks for the links , but i'm not too sure what steps I ought to follow.

I basically want to have the RAID 5 across ad0, ad1, ad2, ad3 ,  and the 
partitions on top of that. and then build my system on top of that (as 
if it were a hardare RAID controller, and I'd be installing on top of 
amr0s1, for example). I think this should be doable, right?

So, should I
1) Boot up with Disc 1, install minimal config, reboot
2) setup GEOM RAID 5 on all the discs ?
3) edit fstab to point to /dev/[what??]/[what else] instead of 
/ad0s1[abef] ?

or

boot up with CD 1, run GEOM, build the raid 5 from here before 
installing anything, then install on top?

thanks for your all help :)

Beto