[ydl-gen] Software RAID - making the spare bootable

[Derick Centeno]

Questions:
You can boot from the original second drive but not from it's replacement??

Are you familiar with the application within YDL known as parted (aka: 
partition editor)?  It can reveal a rather precise layout of the 
partition table for each of the disks in question which would allow you 
to more precisely determine the location of the partitions as well as 
the file systems used within each partition.  Hopefully these details 
could provide essential information useful in analyzing this problem you 
reported.

Suggestion:
Keep a record of each disk's partition table and file system; compare 
each one to the other two.
Perhaps the copy or duplication routine implemented by the software used 
in creating each of the drives is the source of your difficulties; I'm 
guessing of course.  However, parted would report what consumer grade 
Apple software cannot because Apple software cannot see ext2/3.  
However, Apple Server software could be different; I'm not sure.  My 
focus for some years has been Unix/Linux, not Apple.

If you have the hfstools installed within YDL (use yum) you should be 
able to see, write to, use and create whatever partition structure and 
filesystem you need in the order you need it to be.

Supposition:
When TerraSoft existed and Apple produced PowerPCs there existed a 
recommended two-step installation process which involved using Apple's 
Partitioning tool first so that it created the partitions for Apple's OS 
and the partition format known as Free Space - at the same time.  The 
second installation process involved booting from the YDL installation 
DVD to initiate Anaconda to install YDL; the options at that point 
eventually allowed for either choosing an automated installation process 
which allowed Anaconda to build ext3 on those partitions it recognized 
as suitable for Linux, or manually choosing the partition to proceed 
with the installation process.

I am not sure that the above procedure was the same for Apple Servers; 
it should be an area for you to explore carefully.  The problem you 
report sounds like something caused by a missed step or error in one or 
another step of preparing Apple hardware to function seamlessly with 
YDL.  If a review or re-examination of implemented procedures reveal 
that no errors were made then it may be time to replace the "spare" 
completely with a new drive as all other methods will have been explored 
and implemented first.

Good Luck...


On 12/17/10 7:30 AM, Matt Brock wrote:
> Yes, that's exactly right. The spare is set up in just that way, and 
> when I bring it into the array it works fine as the second disk once 
> the sync process is completed. The only problem is that I can't get 
> the server to boot off that new second disk, and that's what's 
> frustrating me.
>