DRAFT - Remote Conversion to Linux Software RAID-1 for Crazy Sysadmins HOWTO

[Leonard den Ottolander]

Hello Warren,

> http://togami.com/~warren/guides/remoteraidcrazies/
> Remote Conversion to Linux Software RAID-1 for Crazy Sysadmins HOWTO

Just browsed the document quickly, so just some brief remarks.

The disks do not need to be identical, as long as the used partitions
are about the same size things are fine. The copying of the partition
table is a crude hack, although it will work if the disks are identical.

The output of the fdisk l command seems somewhat redundant. Just mention
fd is the value to be used for Linux auto raid, or leave it out all
together as it is obvious from the rest of the example.

Not so long ago I had to setup a system remotely myself. As it only
contained a swap and a single partition I had to repartition it. I set
this system up as a redundant system sharing most of the data partitions
(/home, /var/log, /var/spool, /tmp, /var/tmp), but separate system
partitions (/, /usr), so the system can be booted back to its old state
if an update fails.

Such a setup can also be useful if you try to setup a system as you did,
as it makes it possible for someone to reboot the system for you to a
known good state if you faq up. In your case the second installation
does not need to be identical, just a minimal rescue installation.

To avoid an unusable system when booting to the newly setup system if
for some reason something goes wrong is to use the single boot option,
make sure the system reboots on panic and set the new system up to
reboot within a few minutes in /etc/rc.d/rc.local (the first two options
you use as well, the latter is probably not as important in your case as
it was in mine). If for some reason you can't login the system will be
rebooted to the old state, otherwise you can cancel the shutdown.

Leonard.

-- 
mount -t life -o ro /dev/dna /genetic/research