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using drived from a broken mirror (RedHat 9.0)

 
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Marty Metras
Super Advisor

using drived from a broken mirror (RedHat 9.0)

I am using redhat 9.0 and have mirrored 2 drives. I mirrored partition to partition the whole drive.
What I want to do is break the mirror and use one of the Drives to great another server to test some hardware issues.
Can I break the mirror and use the drive on another box. Meaning if I break the mirror will have 2 drives that are almost the same?

Marty
The only thing that always remain the same are the changes.
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Steven E. Protter
Exalted Contributor

Re: using drived from a broken mirror (RedHat 9.0)

When you set up a mirror, its designed for use in the system it was mirrored in. If you stick it in another system, the hardware address may change, making you think its no good.

I'm not saying it won't work, I'm just saying if it fails that does not mean the mirror is bad.

There are other replication technologies such as mondorescue.org and Norton Ghost that can let you replicate the system onto another disk for tests.

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Steven E Protter
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Marty Metras
Super Advisor

Re: using drived from a broken mirror (RedHat 9.0)

So it would work on this box.
Breaking the mirror and just using either drive and see what happens on the other box.
The only thing that always remain the same are the changes.
xyko_1
Esteemed Contributor
Solution

Re: using drived from a broken mirror (RedHat 9.0)

Marty,

when you make a mirror you use md devices and, as far as I know, the filesystem have special characteristics (superblock). So,I think if you put the disk on another system, the target system has to have support for md devices and you have to define the conf file that supports md (raidtab). I have never did something like you want to do, so I am talking just what I think is going to happen.

Please, inform us about your progress and experience.

Regards,
Xyko
Marty Metras
Super Advisor

Re: using drived from a broken mirror (RedHat 9.0)

The whole idea I had was to pull one of the Mirrored drives and create another server that would have the same configurtion.
Most of our other Linux servers we use for firewall, Proxy, etc., we used the 'dd' command to copy the drive and stored it in case the live systms drive failed we could just plug it in make some minor changes and then we would be up.
I think I was basiclly trying to do the came kind of thing with half of a mirror.
Sounds like there is more involved to break a mirror if you are going to use the mirror to great another server. The hardware needs to be considered too.
Marty
The only thing that always remain the same are the changes.
xyko_1
Esteemed Contributor

Re: using drived from a broken mirror (RedHat 9.0)

Marty,

I think the best way is using Mondo Rescue as Steven told, or using partimage and a live distro. I use a brazilian distro called Kurumin based on Knopix. I boot the server from cd, save the image on a server and, if I need to "reborn" a server I boot from the same cd and reload the saved image. This procedure is good also to replicate servers of the same hardware configuration. Remember that is importante also that you save the disk partition map and the mbr.

Hope it helps.
Xyko
Marty Metras
Super Advisor

Re: using drived from a broken mirror (RedHat 9.0)

Thanks I understand what what your saying.
Marty
The only thing that always remain the same are the changes.
Marty Metras
Super Advisor

Re: using drived from a broken mirror (RedHat 9.0)

no more infor in needed.
Thanks for all your help.
Marty
The only thing that always remain the same are the changes.