Is it possible to boot off the install CD, setup a gmirror, and then reboot and install on the mirror (and expect things to work ok)? Anyone try this? It would be nice if the installer let you do this...
Hello!> Is it possible to boot off the install CD, setup a gmirror, and then > reboot and install on the mirror (and expect things to work ok)? Anyone > try this? It would be nice if the installer let you do this...AFAIK, no. Install a minimal system on the first disk, then follow these instructions: http://ezine.daemonnews.org/200502/diskmirror.html When the mirror is up and running, cvsup, buildworld, buildkernel, installkernel, installworld, mergemaster, reboot, enjoy ;-) HTH, Patrick -- punkt.de GmbH Internet - Dienstleistungen - Beratung Vorholzstr. 25 Tel. 0721 9109 -0 Fax: -100 76137 Karlsruhe http://punkt.de
> > Is it possible to boot off the install CD, setup a gmirror, and then > reboot and install on the mirror (and expect things to work ok)? Anyone > try this? It would be nice if the installer let you do this... >Since you have the luxury of doing this at install time, check out the instructions at: http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2005/11/10/FreeBSD_Basics.html?page=1 It worked for me and I think it's more like what you want than the http://ezine.daemonnews.org/200502/diskmirror.html approach which is good for converting a system to gmirror. Mark
On Thu, Mar 02, 2006 at 06:23:37PM -0500, Mike Jakubik wrote:> Is it possible to boot off the install CD, setup a gmirror, and then > reboot and install on the mirror (and expect things to work ok)? Anyone > try this? It would be nice if the installer let you do this...It could be possible, I think... Have you tried to load geom_mirror.ko first? -- Spartak Radchenko SVR1-RIPE
> On Friday 03 March 2006 23:45, Mark Kirkwood wrote: >> > >> > I would certainly see the installer handling software RAID as a >> > considerable benefit. >> > >> > From what I've seen on the net, to install and boot off RAIDed system >> > disks is quite fiddly (maybe gmirror is the exception here, as I've >> > mainly been looking at striping). >> > >> > Cheers >> > >> > Mark > > geom changed this complications definitely, using gmirror or gstripe commands > is easy as copying a file. Probably one of the most important things that > with vinum as example it was not possible to mirror a root partition but > since gmirror places the metadata different we can have now a mirrored and > bootable root partition. Striping with ccd and vinum or mirroring was > certainly a pain even if it worked then stable and reliable. So in comparism > the easy use of geom is great and the people which developed geom did a > really fantastic job. > > Jo?o >Joao, I do agree that gmirror is not that bad and not that difficult. But take a look at how to setup a fresh system using gmirror (slice by slice mirroring): - install a complete system to a fresh disc - create the (well sized) slices on a 2nd disc (not that easy) - create the gmirror set on disc 2 - bring gmirror up - copy all filesystems over to the gmirror set - reboot - create exactly sized slices on disc 1 - insert everything into the gmirror set Using that procedure you're going to copy each installed file three times (install, copy to mirror, sync mirror). That's a waste of time compared to a solution where the installer would be able to install directly into a mirror. When using disc based gmirror (instead of per slice gmirror) the procedure is a bit easier, but similar. If one could create a gmirror set before installing the base system and tell the installer to install into gmX instead of adX/daX, the whole procedure would be much easier and would take less time. I've had to setup a handful of fresh systems over the last months and it was a pain to manually setup gmirror on each fresh system. Greetings, Volker