software for making initrd's with raid support

software for making initrd's with raid support

[Keld Jørn Simonsen]

Hi

I have been looking at making my system working with raid, and booting
from raid. I succeded, but I had to hack a number of things, including
making a new initrd by hand.

I used mkinitrd, but it did not treat sw raid, only in the md sense.
this is a redhat/mandriva/pclinuxos(keldix thing, I wonder if it also
used in the dbian/ubuntu world.

So what do you use for generating initrd? And does it work out of the
box?

Are there any installers that have support for raid1/raid10?

BTW, I updated the howto on preventing against failure caused
by a single bad disk, and I think it now kind of reflects
something that works.

best regards
Keld

Re: software for making initrd's with raid support

[Luca Berra]

On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 12:56:41AM +0100, Keld Jørn Simonsen wrote:
>Hi
>
>I have been looking at making my system working with raid, and booting
>from raid. I succeded, but I had to hack a number of things, including
>making a new initrd by hand.
>
>I used mkinitrd, but it did not treat sw raid, only in the md sense.
>this is a redhat/mandriva/pclinuxos(keldix thing, I wonder if it also
>used in the dbian/ubuntu world.

could you please explain what you mean in the above sentence,
i have being maintaining mandriva mkinitrd packages for some years, and
would really love to know.

L.

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Re: software for making initrd's with raid support

[Keld Jørn Simonsen]

On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 12:15:39PM +0100, Luca Berra wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 12:56:41AM +0100, Keld Jørn Simonsen wrote:
> >Hi
> >
> >I have been looking at making my system working with raid, and booting
> >from raid. I succeded, but I had to hack a number of things, including
> >making a new initrd by hand.
> >
> >I used mkinitrd, but it did not treat sw raid, only in the md sense.
> >this is a redhat/mandriva/pclinuxos(keldix thing, I wonder if it also
> >used in the dbian/ubuntu world.
> 
> could you please explain what you mean in the above sentence,
> i have being maintaining mandriva mkinitrd packages for some years, and
> would really love to know.

Good!  I was working on a mandriva professional 2006 system 2.6.12
kernel, and I hacked the mkinitrd to have it generate mdadm.conf etc
- it did not at all look at this. I can send you my patches, but they
  are in no way clean.

There was no mention of raid10 in the code either.

I thied to contact Erik Troan - the main author of mkinitrd (and lots of
other stuff:-) - but got a bouncing message for his redhat address.

And I was about to report this om qa.mandriva.com - but it seems that I
already made contact!

best regards
keld
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Re: software for making initrd's with raid support

[Luca Berra]

On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 02:00:42PM +0100, Keld Jørn Simonsen wrote:
>On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 12:15:39PM +0100, Luca Berra wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 12:56:41AM +0100, Keld Jørn Simonsen wrote:
>> >Hi
>> >
>> >I have been looking at making my system working with raid, and booting
>> >from raid. I succeded, but I had to hack a number of things, including
>> >making a new initrd by hand.
>> >
>> >I used mkinitrd, but it did not treat sw raid, only in the md sense.
>> >this is a redhat/mandriva/pclinuxos(keldix thing, I wonder if it also
>> >used in the dbian/ubuntu world.
>> 
>> could you please explain what you mean in the above sentence,
>> i have being maintaining mandriva mkinitrd packages for some years, and
>> would really love to know.
>
>Good!  I was working on a mandriva professional 2006 system 2.6.12
2006.0 is EOL
>kernel, and I hacked the mkinitrd to have it generate mdadm.conf etc
>- it did not at all look at this. I can send you my patches, but they
>  are in no way clean.
mkinitrd in 2006.0 did generate mdadm.conf and use it, so i don't know
what your patches were doing.
>There was no mention of raid10 in the code either.
yes support for raid10 was added after 2006.0 release

>I thied to contact Erik Troan - the main author of mkinitrd (and lots of
>other stuff:-) - but got a bouncing message for his redhat address.
i think Erik does not maintain mkinitrd any more, it is quite an old
software.

>And I was about to report this om qa.mandriva.com - but it seems that I
>already made contact!
if you want a bug fixed on mandriva please send a bug report on
qa.mandriva.com, same applies for redhat/fedora.
If you have questions to ask, feel free.

L.

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Re: software for making initrd's with raid support

[Keld Jørn Simonsen]

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 09:15:16AM +0100, Luca Berra wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 02:00:42PM +0100, Keld Jørn Simonsen wrote:
> >On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 12:15:39PM +0100, Luca Berra wrote:
> >>On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 12:56:41AM +0100, Keld Jørn Simonsen wrote:
> >>>Hi
> >>>
> >>>I have been looking at making my system working with raid, and booting
> >>>from raid. I succeded, but I had to hack a number of things, including
> >>>making a new initrd by hand.
> >>>
> >>>I used mkinitrd, but it did not treat sw raid, only in the md sense.
> >>>this is a redhat/mandriva/pclinuxos(keldix thing, I wonder if it also
> >>>used in the dbian/ubuntu world.
> >>
> >>could you please explain what you mean in the above sentence,
> >>i have being maintaining mandriva mkinitrd packages for some years, and
> >>would really love to know.
> >
> >Good!  I was working on a mandriva professional 2006 system 2.6.12
> 2006.0 is EOL

2006.0 professional is maintained to 2011

> >kernel, and I hacked the mkinitrd to have it generate mdadm.conf etc
> >- it did not at all look at this. I can send you my patches, but they
> > are in no way clean.
> mkinitrd in 2006.0 did generate mdadm.conf and use it, so i don't know
> what your patches were doing.

the code to generate mdadm.conf was not activated. I made some patches
to force raid code generation.

> >There was no mention of raid10 in the code either.
> yes support for raid10 was added after 2006.0 release
> 
> >I thied to contact Erik Troan - the main author of mkinitrd (and lots of
> >other stuff:-) - but got a bouncing message for his redhat address.
> i think Erik does not maintain mkinitrd any more, it is quite an old
> software.

OK, who maintains it now, and is mkinitrd still a viable - perhaps the
best - way to make initrd's?

Where is the latest mkinitrd available from?

Could I use the latest mkinitrd with my 2006.0 system?

> >And I was about to report this om qa.mandriva.com - but it seems that I
> >already made contact!
> if you want a bug fixed on mandriva please send a bug report on
> qa.mandriva.com, same applies for redhat/fedora.
> If you have questions to ask, feel free.

Is raid10,f2 supported under the latest haddrake2?

Best regards
keld
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Re: software for making initrd's with raid support

[Luca Berra]

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 02:30:45PM +0100, Keld Jørn Simonsen wrote:
>> >Good!  I was working on a mandriva professional 2006 system 2.6.12
>> 2006.0 is EOL
>
>2006.0 professional is maintained to 2011

you mean cd4?

>> >kernel, and I hacked the mkinitrd to have it generate mdadm.conf etc
>> >- it did not at all look at this. I can send you my patches, but they
>> > are in no way clean.
>> mkinitrd in 2006.0 did generate mdadm.conf and use it, so i don't know
>> what your patches were doing.
>
>the code to generate mdadm.conf was not activated. I made some patches
>to force raid code generation.

really?
if this is the case you should have submitted a bug report.

>> >There was no mention of raid10 in the code either.
>> yes support for raid10 was added after 2006.0 release
>> 
>> >I thied to contact Erik Troan - the main author of mkinitrd (and lots of
>> >other stuff:-) - but got a bouncing message for his redhat address.
>> i think Erik does not maintain mkinitrd any more, it is quite an old
>> software.
>
>OK, who maintains it now, and is mkinitrd still a viable - perhaps the
>best - way to make initrd's?
mkinitrd is maintained by RedHat (http://www.redhat.com/)
afaik the person responsible for that package is Peter Jones.
Mandriva up to 2008.0 used a version derived from mkinitrd 4.2.17 codebase, maintained by me.
the upcoming 2008.1 will use a version derived from mkinitrd 6 codebase,
maintained by Olivier Blin.

>Where is the latest mkinitrd available from?
the redhat version is avaliable from any rawhide mirror
http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/development/
The mandriva version from any cooker mirror
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/CookerMirrors

>Could I use the latest mkinitrd with my 2006.0 system?
i don't think so

>> >And I was about to report this om qa.mandriva.com - but it seems that I
>> >already made contact!
>> if you want a bug fixed on mandriva please send a bug report on
>> qa.mandriva.com, same applies for redhat/fedora.
>> If you have questions to ask, feel free.
>
>Is raid10,f2 supported under the latest haddrake2?

No.


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Re: software for making initrd's with raid support

[Keld Jørn Simonsen]

On Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 12:49:13PM +0100, Luca Berra wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 02:30:45PM +0100, Keld Jørn Simonsen wrote:
> >>>Good!  I was working on a mandriva professional 2006 system 2.6.12
> >>2006.0 is EOL
> >
> >2006.0 professional is maintained to 2011
> 
> you mean cd4?

I mean Corporate Server 4 - cs4.

> >>>kernel, and I hacked the mkinitrd to have it generate mdadm.conf etc
> >>>- it did not at all look at this. I can send you my patches, but they
> >>> are in no way clean.
> >>mkinitrd in 2006.0 did generate mdadm.conf and use it, so i don't know
> >>what your patches were doing.
> >
> >the code to generate mdadm.conf was not activated. I made some patches
> >to force raid code generation.
> 
> really?
> if this is the case you should have submitted a bug report.

It is possible that I do. I would like to find out what to do first,
however.

> >>>There was no mention of raid10 in the code either.
> >>yes support for raid10 was added after 2006.0 release
> >>
> >>>I thied to contact Erik Troan - the main author of mkinitrd (and lots of
> >>>other stuff:-) - but got a bouncing message for his redhat address.
> >>i think Erik does not maintain mkinitrd any more, it is quite an old
> >>software.
> >
> >OK, who maintains it now, and is mkinitrd still a viable - perhaps the
> >best - way to make initrd's?
> mkinitrd is maintained by RedHat (http://www.redhat.com/)
> afaik the person responsible for that package is Peter Jones.
> Mandriva up to 2008.0 used a version derived from mkinitrd 4.2.17 codebase, 
> maintained by me.
> the upcoming 2008.1 will use a version derived from mkinitrd 6 codebase,
> maintained by Olivier Blin.
> 
> >Where is the latest mkinitrd available from?
> the redhat version is avaliable from any rawhide mirror
> http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/development/
> The mandriva version from any cooker mirror
> http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/CookerMirrors
> 
> >Could I use the latest mkinitrd with my 2006.0 system?
> i don't think so
> 
> >>>And I was about to report this om qa.mandriva.com - but it seems that I
> >>>already made contact!
> >>if you want a bug fixed on mandriva please send a bug report on
> >>qa.mandriva.com, same applies for redhat/fedora.
> >>If you have questions to ask, feel free.
> >
> >Is raid10,f2 supported under the latest haddrake2?
> 
> No.

Thanks for your answers. 

I filed a feature request for cooker on harddrake2 and drakx.

I think mkinitrd is actually used by the kernel, with a make install.
Is that true? Then mkinitrd is a general script that is used on almost
all linux systems. So I can assume that this is available when I write a
howto.

best regards
keld
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Re: software for making initrd's with raid support

[Luca Berra]

On Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 01:38:06PM +0100, Keld Jørn Simonsen wrote:
>> really?
>> if this is the case you should have submitted a bug report.
>
>It is possible that I do. I would like to find out what to do first,
>however.

in any case if i am to provide any support, i need more information on
the issue you experienced.

>Thanks for your answers. 
>
>I filed a feature request for cooker on harddrake2 and drakx.
good,
could you send me (privately) the bugzilla number?
>I think mkinitrd is actually used by the kernel, with a make install.
this is because kernel "make install" command looks for a site specific
script called /sbin/installkernel.

>Is that true? Then mkinitrd is a general script that is used on almost
>all linux systems. So I can assume that this is available when I write a
>howto.
afaik redhat, mandriva and turbolinux use a mkinitrd derived from
redhat

suse uses its own mkinitrd command

debian and derivatives use initramfs-tools, or yaird

other distributions i have no knowledge.

L.


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