[gentoo-alpha] installing Gentoo for Alpha on LVM and software Raid?

[gentoo-alpha] installing Gentoo for Alpha on LVM and software Raid?

[Martijn Heemels]

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Hello people,
 
I received an Alphaserver 800 5/500 from a friend and want to install Gentoo
on it.
The box has 4 SCSI harddisks in it, and I would like to create a
Software-Raid5 for the / partition. The /boot partition will receive it's
own Raid1.
On this Raid5 I want to use LVM (or LVM2) to create partitions. There are
plenty howto's that describe such a process.
 
So, I started by downloading the Gentoo for Alpha 2005.1 Universal disc and
can boot succesfully from it. However, I was a bit surprised to find no
userspace tools for Raid or LVM2 on the disc. None of the commands I find in
howto's on the net seem to be available.
 
'modprobe raid5' reveals that the modules are available although I haven't
tried the dm-mod modules (for LVM2). All the tools needed to actually create
and maintain both the Raid and the LVM are not present. I seem to remember
the 2005.0 disc had at least the Raid tools, although the SCSI driver locked
up on me a under load. Seeing that the error messages on bootup have
disappeared on 2005.1 I want to give it another try.
 
I'm relatively experienced with Gentoo x86 but am just finding my way around
an Alpha.
 
Do any of you use a similar setup, or have any tips on how to get the
necessary tools? It seems strange that the Alpha cd doesn't have these
tools, while many other archs do have them, especially since the Alpha is
well suited to be a server.
 
Any ideas?
 
Thanks, Martijn

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Re: [gentoo-alpha] installing Gentoo for Alpha on LVM and software Raid?

[Richard Simpson]

On Friday 14 Oct 2005 00:14, Martijn Heemels wrote:
> I received an Alphaserver 800 5/500 from a friend and want to install
> Gentoo on it.
> The box has 4 SCSI harddisks in it, and I would like to create a
> Software-Raid5 for the / partition. The /boot partition will receive it's
> own Raid1.
> On this Raid5 I want to use LVM (or LVM2) to create partitions.

My policy when configuring my alpha is that it is difficult enough as it is, 
without adding extra complexities.  I would therefore recommend that you 
start by getting Gentoo installed on a separate small hard disc.  Only once 
you have the basic OS together with the RAID and LVM tools installed on that 
should you try to configure RAID and LVM.  Then you can move your partitions 
over to logical volumes.

I use LVM2 (but not yet RAID) and that is how I did it.

Good luck,

	Richard Simpson
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