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In SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server 11, the Device Mapper RAID tool has
been integrated into the YaST Partitioner. You can use the partitioner at
install time to create a software RAID for the system device that
contains your root (/
) partition.
Make sure your configuration meets the following requirements:
You need two or more hard drives, depending on the type of software RAID you plan to create.
The hard drives should be similarly sized. The RAID assumes the size of the smallest drive.
The block storage devices can be any combination of local (in or directly attached to the machine), Fibre Channel storage subsystems, or iSCSI storage subsystems.
If you are using hardware RAID devices, do not attempt to run software RAIDs on top of it.
If you are using iSCSI target devices, enable the iSCSI initiator support before you create the RAID device.
If your storage subsystem provides multiple I/O paths between the server and its directly attached local devices, Fibre Channel devices, or iSCSI devices that you want to use in the software RAID, you must enable the multipath support before you create the RAID device.
If there are iSCSI target devices that you want to use for the root (/) partition, you must enable the iSCSI Initiator software to make those devices available to you before you create the software RAID device.
Proceed with the YaST install of SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 until you reach the Installation Settings page.
Click
to open the Preparing Hard Disk page, click , then click .On the Expert Partitioner page, expand
in the panel to view the default proposal.On the
page, select , then click when prompted to continue with initializing the iSCSI initiator configuration.If there are multiple I/O paths to the devices you want to use to create a software RAID device for the root (/) partition, you must enable multipath support before you create the software RAID device.
Proceed with the YaST install of SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 until you reach the Installation Settings page.
Click
to open the Preparing Hard Disk page, click , then click .On the Expert Partitioner page, expand
in the panel to view the default proposal.On the
page, select , then click when prompted to activate multipath.This re-scans the devices and resolves the multiple paths so that each device is listed only once in the list of hard disks.
Proceed with the YaST install of SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 until you reach the Installation Settings page.
Click
to open the Preparing Hard Disk page, click , then click .On the Expert Partitioner page, expand
in the panel to view the default proposal, select the proposed partitions, then click .Create a swap partition.
On the Expert Partitioner page under
, select the device you want to use for the swap partition, then click on the tab.Under
, select , then click .Under
, specify the size to use, then click .Under
, select , then select from the drop-down list.Under
, select , then select from the drop-down list.Click
.Set up the
format for each of the devices you want to use for the software RAID.On the Expert Partitioner page under
, select the device you want to use in the RAID, then click on the tab.Under
, select , then click .Under
, specify to use the maximum size, then click .Under
, select , then select from the drop-down list.Under
, select .Click
.Repeat Step 5.a to Step 5.f for each device that you plan to use in the software RAID
Create the RAID device.
In the
panel, select , then click on the RAID page.The devices that you prepared in Step 5 are listed in .
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Under
, select , , or .For example, select RAID 1 (Mirroring).
In the
panel, select the devices you want to use for the RAID, then click to move the devices to the panel.Specify two or more devices for a RAID 1, two devices for a RAID 0, or at least three devices for a RAID 5.
To continue the example, two devices are selected for RAID 1.
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Click
.Under
, select the chunk size from the drop-down list.The default chunk size for a RAID 1 (Mirroring) is 4 KB.
The default chunk size for a RAID 0 (Striping) is 32 KB.
Available chunk sizes are 4 KB, 8 KB, 16 KB, 32 KB, 64 KB, 128 KB, 256 KB, 512 KB, 1 MB, 2 MB, or 4 MB.
Under
, select , then select the file system type (such as Ext3) from the drop-down list.
Under /
from the
drop-down list.
Click
.
The software RAID device is managed by Device Mapper, and creates a
device under the /dev/md0
path.
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On the Expert Partitioner page, click
.The new proposal appears under
on the Installation Settings page.For example, the setup for the
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Continue with the install.
Whenever you reboot your server, Device Mapper is started at boot time so that the software RAID is automatically recognized, and the operating system on the root (/) partition can be started.