FreeBSD 8.0: RAID-1 using gpart, gvinum and gmirror

[Marin Atanasov]

Hi,

Well, as I said before I'm using gmirror for the root partition - that's the
easiest part, but...

The reason that I don't want to use gmirror for the other partitions is that
I'm using two not identical disks, so I want to mirror them using gvinum
instead, which will give me also possibility to extend the volumes if I need
so - adding/removing plexes from it, etc, which I think is more flexible
than just using gmirror.

I've done this setup on 8.0-RC1, and I must say it works very well - root is
mirrored via gmirror and /usr, /var, /tmp, swap are mirrored via gvinum.
When I need more space I just extend the volumes.

But as I pointed the way gpart is working I'm not able to create a partition
that overlaps the other partitions.

Do you know how this can be done?

Thanks and regards,
Marin

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 7:16 PM, Peter C. Lai <peter at simons-rock.edu> wrote:

> Why are you using gvinum for RAID 1 instead of gmirror? The gmirror method
> for mirroring the boot partition is already well documented...
>
> On 2009-12-02 12:35:17PM +0200, Marin Atanasov wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I'm going to make my partition mirrored using the geom utilities, but
> > however I've noticed that I cannot use the same way I used to do it under
> > 7.2 and 8.0-RC1.
> >
> > Here's the situation - I tried a lot of times to make my root partition
> > mirrored using gvinum, but each time when I boot in the new partition I'm
> > unable to boot from it.. So instead of using gvinum for the root
> partition
> > I've decided to use gmirror - and it works!
> >
> > I did it the following way - two NOT identical disks are added to the
> > system.
> >
> >   - 1 slices on the first disk
> >   - 2 slices on the second one (the 1st slice is the size of the root
> > partition which is on the 1st slice on the 1st disk)
> >
> > Right after a fresh minimal install, I go to single-user mode and create
> the
> > mirror:
> >
> > # gmirror label -vb round-robin gm0 /dev/ad0s1a
> >
> > Installing bootstap code on the second disk (in case I need to boot later
> > from it):
> > # fdisk -BI /dev/ad4s1
> > # bsdlabel -wB /dev/ad4s1
> > # newfs -O2 /dev/ad4s1
> > # newfs -O2 -U /dev/ad4s2
> >
> > And then inserting the second component of the mirror:
> > # gmirror insert gm0 /dev/ad4s1
> >
> > And this is how I was doing a mirror for the root partition. For the
> other
> > partitions - /usr, /var, /tmp, swap I used gvinum following a different
> > articles, howtos and eventually it worked. The complete scenario of how I
> > did the mirror for the other partitions is here (sorry, it's too long to
> > just copy/paste it in the lists):
> > http://www.daemonforums.org/showpost.php?p=27010&postcount=3
> >
> > If I can say it with little words - the way mirroring works for the other
> > partitions was to overlap all the other partitions with one big vinum
> > partition.
> >
> > My problem now is that I cannot do this anymore, because I need to use
> gpart
> > instead for creating the partitions, and using gpart I cannot create a
> vinum
> > partition that will overlap the other partitions, so I cannot make any
> > mirror for the other partitions.
> >
> > Is there any other way of doing this?
> >
> > I'm out of ideas now, perhaps you could help me out with this :)
> >
> > Thanks and regards,
> > Marin
> >
> > --
> > Marin Atanasov Nikolov
> > dnaeon AT gmail DOT com
> > daemon AT unix-heaven DOT org
> > _______________________________________________
> > freebsd-stable at freebsd.org mailing list
> > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
> > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe at freebsd.org
> "
>
> --
> ===========================================================
> Peter C. Lai                 | Bard College at Simon's Rock
> Systems Administrator        | 84 Alford Rd.
> Information Technology Svcs. | Gt. Barrington, MA 01230 USA
> peter AT simons-rock.edu     | (413) 528-7428
> ===========================================================
>
>


-- 
Marin Atanasov Nikolov
dnaeon AT gmail DOT com
daemon AT unix-heaven DOT org