Re: GRUB support for RAID

[Robert Millan]

Hey,

Charles sent a patch to Debian that fixes grub-install and update-grub to
detect and use multiple drives for RAID on GNU/Linux.

I'm trying to sort out the details. 

(More forwards follow)

On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 02:22:39PM -0500, Charles Steinkuehler wrote:
> Robert Millan wrote:
> 
> >Hi!
> >
> >I'm looking at your patches for update-grub and grub-install for adding 
> >them
> >to the Debian package.
> >
> >Note that update-grub is a Debian-specific tool, but grub-install is
> >maintained in upstream. This means it's convenient to merge the 
> >grub-install
> >bits in upstream to avoid maintaining this patch eternaly for Debian.
> >
> >Would you be so kind of sending the grub-install part to GRUB upstream?
> 
> Sure, but the grub-install mods are more of a 'band-aid' for Debian 
> support, rather than something that seems appropriate for the upstream 
> package.  Off the top of my head, some issues with the grub-install 
> patch I provided to debain-boot:
> 
> 1) Relies on mdadm, no fall-back to raidtools or other tools if mdadm is 
> not present.
> 
> 2) Does not check for RAID on top of non-standard devices (ie: RAID1 on 
> top of RAID0, LVM, etc).
> 
> 3) Does not check RAID level (ie: RAID1 is OK for /boot or root, but 
> RAID levels 0 or 5 would be bad).
> 
> 4) Does not install MBR on all RAID devices (his was by design on my 
> part, as I didn't know what the preference would be).
> 
> I can easily fix #3 and #4 and supply a patch to the upstream grub, if 
> desired (let me know which version of grub you'd like a patch for).
> 
> Issues #1 and #2 are more complex, but the nasty low-level code has 
> already been written (for Debian's mkinitrd), and could likely be 
> 'appropriated' for use by grub-install. :)
> 
> >You'll have to add an entry with your name in ChangeLog. I'm also upstream
> >maintainer, so I can commit it provided the copyright is ok.
> 
> What copyrights would be OK?  I don't really care, and could even assign 
> the copyright if that would help...
> 
> -- 
> Charles Steinkuehler
> address@hidden

-- 
Robert Millan

"[..] but the delight and pride of Aule is in the deed of making, and in the
thing made, and neither in possession nor in his own mastery; wherefore he
gives and hoards not, and is free from care, passing ever on to some new work."

 -- J.R.R.T., Ainulindale (Silmarillion)