support for RAID controllers in setup_harddisks

[Chad C. Walstrom]

On Mon, Jan 14, 2002 at 02:08:10PM +0100, Thomas Lange wrote:
> I just put a patch from Marc Martinez into CVS so setup_hardisks (version
> 0.12fai) now supports /dev/ida/ and /dev/rd/ devices. 

Wunderbar!

> The next version of a non interactive partition tool will use libparted and
> should also support raid, lvm,... What else should be included ?

LVM is an interesting beast.  You can either use an LVM partition for a given
disc, or you can use the whole disc as a block device for LVM, using the space
you would otherwise sacrifice to partition tables.  Although this is a
wonderful idea, it will cause havoc with some programs that expect to see a
partition table.  If Windoze sees a disc w/o partition table, it will assume
that the disc is unused.  It will "fix" the disc and go on it's merry way, even
if you don't formally "format" or use the disc in Windoze.  For dual-boot
machines, simply having the disc partitioned and dedicated as an LVM partition
will save some headaches.

I'm not sure how much I'd like to use initrd images, but they do come in handy
if you only want to compile one kernel for all of your machines of the same
architecture.  Customizing the kernel boot then involves loading different
initrd images.  Another added advantage is being able to use the Debian
standard kernels.  Anyway, we should think about supporting initrd for the
remote boot kernels as well.

Oh, small note of interest.  I only compile one kernel for all of my machines.
This creates a lot of modules, but makes it very nice in that I don't need an
extra fai-boot partition to reinstall.  I also changed the grub routine to use
the update-grub command to generate the new grub /boot/grub/menu.lst file.

Another trick to note.  If you need to install a new kernel on the nfsroot
image, you don't have to redo the make-fai-nfsroot.  Just chroot into the
directory and perform a 'dpkg -i kernel-image...' or 'apt-get upgrade'.

	bash$ sudo chroot /usr/lib/fai/nfsroot /bin/bash
	bash# apt-get update;apt-get install kernel-image-2.4.17

Then, exit the chroot environment and re-create your boot floppy.

-- 
Chad Walstrom <chewie at wookimus.net>                 | a.k.a. ^chewie
http://www.wookimus.net/                            | s.k.a. gunnarr
Get my public key, ICQ#, etc.  Send email w/the Subject: "get help"