Software RAID5

[Gabriel Dragffy]

On 22 Sep 2007, at 12:19, Roland Smith wrote:
>
> To elaborate, the loader doesn't know about the RAID layout. It is  
> only
> usable _after_ the kernel has loaded.
>
>
>> I read in the FreeBSD hanbook that I can have root on raid 5 by  
>> doing the
>> following:
>> "There is another option as well, to have /boot/loader (Section  
>> 12.3.3)
>> load the vinum kernel module early, before starting the kernel.  
>> This can be
>> accomplished by putting the line:
>> geom_vinum_load="YES"
>> into the file /boot/loader.conf."
>
> The thing is that vinum is not gvinum! Gvinum is a replacement for  
> vinum
> using the GEOM framework. I guess nobody has gotten around to  
> update the
> handbook yet.


Did you read the handbook? They say at the beginning of the chapter  
20 (20.1):

"Starting with FreeBSD 5, Vinum has been rewritten in order to fit  
into the GEOM architecture (Chapter 19), retaining the original  
ideas, terminology, and on-disk metadata. This rewrite is called  
gvinum (for GEOM vinum). The following text usually refers to Vinum  
as an abstract name, regardless of the implementation variant. Any  
command invocations should now be done using the gvinum command, and  
the name of the kernel module has been changed from vinum.ko to  
geom_vinum.ko, and all device nodes reside under /dev/gvinum instead  
of /dev/vinum. As of FreeBSD 6, the old Vinum implementation is no  
longer available in the code base."

So that makes me think they have updated the handbook.

and in the chapter 20.9.1 it says:
"load the vinum kernel module early, before starting the kernel. This  
can be accomplished by putting the line:
geom_vinum_load="YES"
into the file /boot/loader.conf."

"For Gvinum, all startup is done automatically once the kernel module  
has been loaded, so the procedure described above is all that is  
needed. The following text documents the behaviour of the historic  
Vinum system, for the sake of older setups."

It seems perfectly clear the handbook has both been updated and is  
saying i can have root on raid, or am I mistaken?