simple RAID setup

[Paul Gear]

On 12/29/2012 12:36 PM, Tom Sparks wrote:
> I am looking at setup a RAID
>
> what is the simplest setup?

RAID 1 is recommended for boot disks.  My preferred setup is to set up 
all boot disks (usually 2, but i've been known to go as high as 4) as 
follows:

1. primary partition, 1 GB or so, Linux RAID partition (type 0xFD in 
fdisk, known as physical volume for RAID in the server/alternate 
installer).  Once these have been combined into a RAID partition 
(usually /dev/md0), i create an ext3 filesystem for /boot on it.

2. primary or logical partition, rest of the disk, Linux RAID.  Once 
these have been combined into a RAID partition (usually /dev/md1), i 
create an LVM physical volume (PV) on this, create a volume group (VG) 
named for the host and a sequence number (e.g. myserv0).  Then you can 
create logical volumes (LVs) in the VG that act like physical 
partitions, but can be moved and grown as needed.

3. LVs in the root VG:

  * lv00 4GB swap
  * lv01 8GB+ /
  * lv02 8GB+ /var
  * rest of VG can be allocated as desired, but often it goes in /home

It's not required to have a separate /boot nowadays, but i prefer it 
because it has been very stable and trouble-free for me for many years.  
I have an idea that the Ubuntu installer nowadays might even have a 
canned configuration that sets up RAID 1 + LVM.  But don't quote me on 
that one.

I've got a bit more at my wiki (hasn't been updated in a while, though):

  * http://linuxman.wikispaces.com/search/view/raid
  * http://linuxman.wikispaces.com/Software+RAID+troubleshooting
  * http://linuxman.wikispaces.com/Recovering+from+a+RAID+drive+failure
  * http://linuxman.wikispaces.com/filesystem+layers+overview

I'm sure there are better guides than mine if you care to search, but i 
haven't found anything like the filesystem layers overview elsewhere.

If you have any troubles, jump on IRC in #ubuntu-au and ping me 
(blahdeblah) and i'll see what i can do to help.

Regards,
Paul

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