Arch Linux

benoitc

Member

Registered: 2004-11-11

Posts: 62

Website

How to setup SATA raid 1 with an asus A7N8X-E cards?

I'm looking for any help to setup the raid 1 on linux with the motherboad A7N8X-E from asus ( http://tinyurl.com/6ex9s ). I enabled the raid 1 (mirroring) with the bios utility but I have yet two disk on linux.  I compiled the vanilla 2.6.10 kernel with there options :

[*] Multiple devices driver support (RAID and LVM)                            
                  <*>   RAID support                                                            
                  <*>     Linear (append) mode                                                  
                  <*>     RAID-0 (striping) mode                                                
                  <*>     RAID-1 (mirroring) mode                                               
                  <*>     RAID-10 (mirrored striping) mode (EXPERIMENTAL)                       
                  <*>     RAID-4/RAID-5 mode                                                    
                  <*>     RAID-6 mode (EXPERIMENTAL)                                            
                  <*>     Multipath I/O support                                                 
                  < >     Faulty test module for MD                                             
                  <*>   Device mapper support                                                   
                  <*>     Crypt target support                                                  
                  <*>     Snapshot target (EXPERIMENTAL)                                        
                  <*>     Mirror target (EXPERIMENTAL)                                          
                  <*>     Zero target (EXPERIMENTAL) 

And installed dmraid utility to follow this tutorial : http://tienstra4.flatnet.tudelft.nl/~gerte/gen2dmraid/

pkgname=dmraid
pkgver=1.0.0
pkgrel=rc5f
pkgdesc="This software discovers, activates, deactivates and displays properties
of software RAID sets"
depends=('device-mapper')
backup=('etc/raidtab')
source=(http://people.redhat.com/~heinzm/sw/dmraid/src/dmraid-$pkgver-$pkgrel.tar.bz2)

build() {
  cd $startdir/src/$pkgname/$pkgver-$pkgrel
  ./configure --prefix=/usr
  make || return 1
  mkdir -p $startdir/pkg/usr/lib $startdir/pkg/usr/sbin $startdir/pkg/usr/man/man8

  make prefix=$startdir/pkg/usr install
}

But when I run dmraid with following command :

dmraid -ay

I have this error :

ERROR: dos: reading /dev/mapper/sil_afabcaaicjcgc[2]

/dev/mapper/sil_afabcaaicjcgc exist and even dmraid recognize my two hard disks mirrored :

[root@enki linux]# dmraid -r
/dev/sda: sil, "sil_afabcaaicjcgc", mirror, ok, 241252672 sectors, data@ 0
/dev/sdb: sil, "sil_afabcaaicjcgc", mirror, ok, 241252672 sectors, data@ 0

SO what vould be the probleme ? Any idee to solve it ? Any help would be apreciated

---

http://www.archlinuxfr.org

FUBAR

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2004-12-08

Posts: 1,029

Website

Re: How to setup SATA raid 1 with an asus A7N8X-E cards?

So you made a RAID1-array in the RAID controller's BIOS? If so, you only need support for the RAID-controller. This way, you'll get new devices: your RAID-array is accessible through a new device. With my ATARAID (before md-RAID), it was /dev/ataraid.
You don't need any RAID1-support in the kernel anymore: your onboard controller takes care of that.

So in short: just load the appropriate module for your RAID-controller and the RAID-array defined in the BIOS should be ready to be partitioned.

---

A bus station is where a bus stops.
A train station is where a train stops.
On my desk I have a workstation.

benoitc

Member

Registered: 2004-11-11

Posts: 62

Website

Re: How to setup SATA raid 1 with an asus A7N8X-E cards?

So how to use dmsetup an,d mdadm ?

---

http://www.archlinuxfr.org

FUBAR

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2004-12-08

Posts: 1,029

Website

Re: How to setup SATA raid 1 with an asus A7N8X-E cards?

I don't know what dmsetup does, but mdadm is for md-RAID volumes. And as I said, your RAID-controller handles the RAID-array, not Linux (with the md module) so mdadm won't be of any use.

You have to realize since the RAID-controller handles the RAID-array, Linux won't actually know it's RAID. As soon as you load the module for your RAID-controller, there will be a new device in /dev and Linux will treat it as a hard disk, which needs to be partitioned and fitted with a filesystem.

Just create RAID-1 array in the controller's BIOS and load the module for your controller. After loading it, check /var/log/messages or do "dmesg" to see the name of your RAIDed harddisk (maybe something like /dev/ida).

---

A bus station is where a bus stops.
A train station is where a train stops.
On my desk I have a workstation.

grndrush

Member

From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2003-12-28

Posts: 136

Website

Re: How to setup SATA raid 1 with an asus A7N8X-E cards?

Note that a lot of the same kernel (and, I guess, userspace) code is common to both RAID and LVM. device-mapper handles mapping of both, and, to the kernel, they are (logically) very similar devices. I've used the products (serially) for well over a year now, and I'd never heard of dmsetup until you mentioned it! I don't think your knowledge level will need to be high there. I knew "something" was automagically going on behind the scenes, but it all worked so smoothly and I had so few problems (not counting the head crash) that I never had to study it much! Read the docs, do the mdadm trick, and you're set.

And, although the 120GB died (head-crash) and I'm stuck at one HD ATM, dm-RAID is "da bomb". WAY cool. I had 120GB and 250GB HD's, had my Linux system partitions all RAIDed (less than 10GB off each drive), plus a decent-sized /mnt (RAID) partition, and the rest solo storage. It was like I only lost about 30-40GB total - because that's what I effectively lost. Try THAT with H/W RAID!

benoitc, I've (successfully) installed RAID or LVM (the one thing I haven't done is install them at the same time) on both the ASUS A8N-E and A8V-MX mobo's, more than once and never failed to install properly (WITH root (/) - AND swap - on LVM or RAID). Read the wiki you were pointed to (it's what I used, and all I needed), and take notes about setting up your PV/VG/LV farm. A LOT of the complexity in that document *isn't* LVM - it's RAID; the main catch being that, for RAID, your bootloader must be installed on multiple HD's, a somewhat complex task.

The process was VERY straightforward (which sets a good mindset). Besides USELVM="yes" and including it in the HOOKS array in /etc/rc.conf), ALL you have to do (first) is create and mount all your filesystems (at one point you had to `modprobe dm_mod`but I forgot to recently, with no ill result). You have to partition the drive, then set up your PV and VG (no real need for more than one of either unless you have multiple drives), setup and allocate, and *create filesystems on* your LV's (and mount them - note the */mnt* mkdirs) BEFORE running /arch/setup. When you run /arch/setup, you skip straight to "Mount FileSystems" (I guess you *could* mount ALL your filesystems - including creating and starting up swap - but I haven't found the need to try yet. Guess I will next time, LOL.

But by the time you get to 'Select Packages' in /arch/setup, there's absolutely no difference in the install (IIRC...). My HD:

Disk /dev/sda: 30401 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot   Start       End      #cyls       #blocks     Id    System
/dev/sda1   *        0+           4           5-          40131    83    Linux
/dev/sda2             5             9           5          40162+  83    Linux
/dev/sda3           10       2057     2048    16450560     8e    Linux LVM
/dev/sda4       2058     30400   28343  227665147+   5     Extended
/dev/sda5       2058+    2573       516-     4144738+  83    Linux
/dev/sda6       2574+    6755     4182-   33591883+  83    Linux
/dev/sda7       6756+  30400   23645- 189928431    83    Linux

sda1: x86_64 /boot, ext2
sda2: i686  /boot, ext2 (planned)
sda3: is LVM2 (note it's a PRIMARY partition)
sda4: ext
sda5: x86_64 /var/cache/pacman, ext2 (and a GREAT way to keep down the footprint of your 'install', IMNSHO).
sda6/7: huge /mnt partitions (from the RAID days, I guess), ReiserFS.

I have /, /home, and swap on LVM. / and /home are currently ReiserFS,, but my next (x86_64) install, based on recent research,  will use either XFS, or, more likely, JFS, for its filesystems. I try and keep things such that I can always resize something in the extended partition or else copy the data off and recreate partitions.

FWIW, swap can go on LVM. I do so. If I end up having to install a 32-bit stub for chroot purposes, I plan on using the same LVM PV/VG (with new VMs, of course), and of course the swap file can be shared between the two!

I envy you! I'm hoping my next Arch install will be on a system with 2 HD's (and 6 fans, and a 900W P/S...), and install both RAID and LVM!

guidouil, I'm pretty sure the wiki docs state that you can't "backport" RAID to a system. You have to install the system with it initially (same with LVM, if you want to do the obvious and use LVM for your important partitions!).

Blue Skies...Keith

loosec

Member

Registered: 2007-03-08

Posts: 134

Re: How to setup SATA raid 1 with an asus A7N8X-E cards?

I am trying to setup a SATA RAID on my archbox but I can't get to ot

here is my hardware for this :
an iDeq barebone 210v
S-ATA RAID Chipset VIA VT8237
2 SATA 80Gb hardrives

I read there (http://linux.yyz.us/sata/faq-sata-raid.html) that my chipset is not hardware RAID. It is software RAID, provided by the BIOS on the card.

when I installed arch it sow the two different hardrives as separate but not as one raid1 in mirroring mode.
How do I do to make it work properly ?

I might have to use dmraid to controll my sata chipset/bios but I have no clue.
can someone give me an hand ? show some good link to work around ?
thank you in advance

It could be that you got the AUR package before it was updated with uwolfers hooks and install-scripts (around xmas) then you would be unable to boot from your array. With the new version this is very possible and rather easy, see link to wiki below.

So how to use dmsetup an,d mdadm ?

Your answers should be found in a newly updated wikipage: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ins … _Fake-RAID
Worked really well for me on an nforce-4 sata chipset. Actually works rather well dualbooted with windows on the same array until the windows driver crashes (scary moment)