[CentOS] RAID1 setup
Continuing this thread, and focusing on RAID1. I got an HPE Proliant gen10+ that has hardware RAID support. (can turn it off if I want). I am planning two groupings of RAID1 (it has 4 bays). There is also an internal USB boot port. So I am really a newbie in working with RAID. From this thread it sounds like I want /boot and /boot/efi on that USBVV boot device. Will it work to put / on the first RAID group? What happens if the 1st drive fails and it is replaced with a new blank drive. Will the config in /boot figure this out or does the RAID hardware completely mask the 2 drives and the system runs on the good one while the new one is being replicated? I also don't see how to build that boot USB stick. I will have the install ISO in the boot USB port and the 4 drives set up with hardware RAID. How are things figure out? I am missing some important piece here. Oh, HP does list Redhat support for this unit. thanks for all help. Bob On 1/6/23 11:45, Chris Adams wrote: Once upon a time, Simon Matter said: Are you sure that's still true? I've done it that way in the past but it seems at least with EL8 you can put /boot/efi on md raid1 with metadata format 1.0. That way the EFI firmware will see it as two independent FAT filesystems. Only thing you have to be sure is that nothing ever writes to these filesystems when Linux is not running, otherwise your /boot/efi md raid will become corrupt. Can someone who has this running confirm that it works? Yes, that's even how RHEL/Fedora set it up currently I believe. But like you say, it only works as long as there's no other OS on the system and the UEFI firmware itself is never used to change anything on the FS. It's not entirely clear that most UEFI firmwares would handle a drive failure correctly either (since it's outside the scope of UEFI), so IIRC there's been some consideration in Fedora of dropping this support. And... I'm not sure if GRUB2 handles RAID 1 /boot fully correctly, for things where it writes to the FS (grubenv updates for "savedefault" for example). But, there's other issues with GRUB2's FS handling anyway, so this case is probably far down the list. I think that having RAID 1 for /boot and/or /boot/efi can be helpful (and I've set it up, definitely not saying "don't do that"), but has to be handled with care and possibly (probably?) would need manual intervention to get booting again after a drive failure or replacement. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
[CentOS] Help with an HP Proliant gen10 plus?
Just starting and trying to boot off the SPP firmware update ISO image on a USB stick. I made the stick with: # mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb # dd bs=4M if=P52581_001_gen10spp-2022.09.01.00-SPP2022090100.2022_0930.1.iso of=/dev/sdb status=progress The usb drive is 16GB and the iso is 9GB. seem to boot from it and go into auto install of firmware then died with starting initrd... warning!!! Unable to mount the file system [cdrom] warning!!! Unable to mount the file system Preboot maintence mode /bin/ash: can't access tty: job control turned off and at # prompt. There is no cdrom on the gen10 plus. Only in internal bootable usb port. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] RAID1 setup
Hi > Continuing this thread, and focusing on RAID1. > > I got an HPE Proliant gen10+ that has hardware RAID support. (can turn > it off if I want). What exact model of RAID controller is this? If it's a S100i SR Gen10 then it's not hardware RAID at all. > > I am planning two groupings of RAID1 (it has 4 bays). > > There is also an internal USB boot port. > > So I am really a newbie in working with RAID. From this thread it > sounds like I want /boot and /boot/efi on that USBVV boot device. I suggest to use the USB device only to bot the installation medium, not use it for anything used by the OS. > > Will it work to put / on the first RAID group? What happens if the 1st > drive fails and it is replaced with a new blank drive. Will the config > in /boot figure this out or does the RAID hardware completely mask the 2 > drives and the system runs on the good one while the new one is being > replicated? I guess the best thing would be to use Linux Software RAID and create a small RAID1 (MD0) device for /boot and another one for /boot/efi (MD1), both in the beginning of disk 0 and 1 (MD2). The remaining space on disk 0 and 1 are created as another MD device. Disk 2 and 3 are also created as one RAID1 (MD3) device. Formatting can be done like this MD0 has filesystem for /boot MD1 has filesystem for /boot/efi MD2 is used as LVM PV MD3 is used as LVM PV All other filesystems like / or /var or /home... will be created on LVM Logical Volumes to give you full flexibility to manage storage. Regards, Simon > > I also don't see how to build that boot USB stick. I will have the > install ISO in the boot USB port and the 4 drives set up with hardware > RAID. How are things figure out? I am missing some important piece here. > > Oh, HP does list Redhat support for this unit. > > thanks for all help. > > Bob > > On 1/6/23 11:45, Chris Adams wrote: >> Once upon a time, Simon Matter said: >>> Are you sure that's still true? I've done it that way in the past but >>> it >>> seems at least with EL8 you can put /boot/efi on md raid1 with metadata >>> format 1.0. That way the EFI firmware will see it as two independent >>> FAT >>> filesystems. Only thing you have to be sure is that nothing ever writes >>> to >>> these filesystems when Linux is not running, otherwise your /boot/efi >>> md >>> raid will become corrupt. >>> >>> Can someone who has this running confirm that it works? >> Yes, that's even how RHEL/Fedora set it up currently I believe. But >> like you say, it only works as long as there's no other OS on the system >> and the UEFI firmware itself is never used to change anything on the FS. >> It's not entirely clear that most UEFI firmwares would handle a drive >> failure correctly either (since it's outside the scope of UEFI), so IIRC >> there's been some consideration in Fedora of dropping this support. >> >> And... I'm not sure if GRUB2 handles RAID 1 /boot fully correctly, for >> things where it writes to the FS (grubenv updates for "savedefault" for >> example). But, there's other issues with GRUB2's FS handling anyway, so >> this case is probably far down the list. >> >> I think that having RAID 1 for /boot and/or /boot/efi can be helpful >> (and I've set it up, definitely not saying "don't do that"), but has to >> be handled with care and possibly (probably?) would need manual >> intervention to get booting again after a drive failure or replacement. >> > > ___ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS@centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] Help with an HP Proliant gen10 plus?
> Just starting and trying to boot off the SPP firmware update ISO image > on a USB stick. > > I made the stick with: > > # mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb Why create an MS-DOS filesystem on the stick which gets immediately overwritten in the next step? > # dd bs=4M > if=P52581_001_gen10spp-2022.09.01.00-SPP2022090100.2022_0930.1.iso > of=/dev/sdb status=progress Is this what HPE says how to create the stick? If yes then you may ask HPE how to get it to work. > > The usb drive is 16GB and the iso is 9GB. > > seem to boot from it and go into auto install of firmware then died with > > starting initrd... > > warning!!! Unable to mount the file system [cdrom] > warning!!! Unable to mount the file system > > Preboot maintence mode > > /bin/ash: can't access tty: job control turned off > > and at # prompt. > > There is no cdrom on the gen10 plus. Only in internal bootable usb port. That's usually fine because the cdrom can be mounted as loop device. No need for a real cdrom. Regards, Simon ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
