RH AS V3 - How to mirror boot disk after linux os installed ?

[chiajen]

Hi.
I am looking for recommendation on how to mirror current linux os disk on SCSI disk w/o
affecting the running system or with minimal
interruption.

There are two 73GB disks on the Proliant system /dev/sda & /dev/sdb.

1)Will LVM support mirroring the boot disk ?
2)Will hardware mirror a workable solution ?


Thank you in advance for your help.
Chia-Jen

[Steven E. Protter]

Hardware mirror will work. It is the preferred solution as it takes away mirroring functions from the CPU.

got a few docs for you:
http://willert.dk/geek/raid.html

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5653

None of these are perfect, but they teach you the concept.

Outline:

with fdisk, create a partition structure on the mirror disk that is exactly the same as the boot disk.

Use the docs above to set up the raid 1 mirroriing.

SEP

[Vitaly Karasik_1]

Chiajen,

Can you please send us details about your Proliant server, so I'll be able to say you if you have hardware RAID controller.
BTW, Both links sent by Steven are about software RAID.
If you have hardware RAID, you can build RAID 1 [mirror] using HP RAID management utility.

Rgds,
Vitaly

[chiajen]

Hi. Thank you for the udpate.

[chiajen]

I forgot to attach the sysreport for the HP Carrier Grade server cc3310. I guess this
server has an optional RAID controller installed and I believe mirroring the current RH AS Linux can be done via the
hardware mirror to internal and external disks assuming there are spare disks available. Can you help to verify that ?

Also, I have another questions on software mirroring of installed RHAS V3 Linux operating system disk. Can it be done via md raid, or LVM Linux raid ?

If we can mirror OS disk via LVM or mkraid, will that apply to other RH Linux release ?

Or there are alternative solutions and recommendations for RH AS, ES, workstation Lunix ?

Thank you,
Chia-jen

[Vitaly Karasik_1]

Yes, your box has Adaptec AIC-7902 RAID adapter, you should be able to enter to RAID BIOS during boot.

As for software tools - I suggest you to use software RAID, read http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-3-Manual/sysadmin-guide/ch-raid-intro.html for more.