Bug 11324

Summary:	Please allow to use GRUB with RAID1
Product:	Mageia	Reporter:	Alejandro Vargas <alejandro.anv>
Component:	Installer	Assignee:	Mageia Bug Squad <bugsquad>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED	QA Contact:
Severity:	enhancement
Priority:	Normal	CC:	hankivy, mageia, thierry.vignaud
Version:	Cauldron
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Source RPM:		CVE:
Status comment:

Description Alejandro Vargas 2013-09-30 14:43:59 CEST

Description of problem:

Installer does not allow to install /boot in RAID1 device using grub (and lilo does not boot).

I am sure of grub perfectly able to boot from RAID1 devices because I made it manually, but mageia installer does not allow to do it. If /boot is placed in a RAID1 device, it installs lilo (and does not work but it is another bug).



Reproducible: 

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1 Nicolas Lécureuil 2013-10-03 00:44:07 CEST

The question can be : "do we still need to support lilo ?"

CC: (none) => nicolas.lecureuil

Comment 2 Alejandro Vargas 2013-10-03 09:05:33 CEST

If the /boot is in RAID1, the installer automatically chooses lilo. But really, I think it is not necesry. Lilo is no longer needed.

In my experience, grub can boot from RAID1. Ext4 in RAID1 is exactly the same as ext4 in a normal partition but with the addition of a few data sectors at the end of the partition. A RAID1 member can be mounted as a normal filesystem. 

But really I think Mageia could switch to GRUB2 as default boot loader. GRUB2 can boot from LVM, RAID, etc. I even am booting from LVM over RAID1 with grub2. With grub2 /boot partition is no longer needed. 

By the way, if /boot is in a LVM, the installer should not allow to use grub1 (and it does).

And other thing: I am installing mageia for servers, then I always use 2 hard disks (mirrored). This is why I want /boot in a RAID1 (I want to be able to remove one of the disks and keep the system running). I this scenario, the only problem is that grub is only in the first disk. It wolud be great if the installer let us to choose in which diskS install the grub(2) bootloader. Now I am running grub2-install /dev/sdb after installation but it would be greet if the installer does this at install.

Comment 3 Alejandro Vargas 2013-10-03 13:47:35 CEST

By the way... remember that partitioning should leave enough space at the begining of the disk for grub2+raid and lvm modules. It is better to start the first partition at block 2048. I had problems with this (grub2 install reports an error if the first partition is at block 63).

Manuel Hiebel 2013-10-03 18:14:27 CEST

Version: 3 => Cauldron

Comment 4 Henry Ivy 2014-08-11 00:19:55 CEST

The normal Mageia install process will only create new Linux raid partitions using RAID metadata version 1.20 format.  LILO only supports RAID metadata version 0.90 format for the /boot partition.  LILO fails to boot the system when the /boot partition uses RAID metadata version 1.20 format.

There is a work-around for this.  See https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7975 .

CC: (none) => hankivy

Comment 5 Thierry Vignaud 2016-06-17 15:48:12 CEST

Grub2 will be the default bootloader for mga6

CC: (none) => thierry.vignaud

Comment 6 Mageia Robot 2016-07-04 18:13:26 CEST

commit 5976acd282a1564ea4d3fd8b1c08bce240493194
Author: Thierry Vignaud <thierry.vignaud@...>
Date:   Mon Jul 4 17:42:41 2016 +0200

    do not warn about no bootloader can boot RAID[^1]
    
    As grub2 can boot... (mga#11324)
    This should also fix mga#9524
    And thus stop forcing obsolete metadata 0.90 format
---
 Commit Link:
   http://gitweb.mageia.org/software/drakx/commit/?id=5976acd282a1564ea4d3fd8b1c08bce240493194

 Bug links:
   Mageia
      https://bugs.mageia.org/9524
      https://bugs.mageia.org/11324

Comment 7 Thierry Vignaud 2016-07-04 18:16:14 CEST

Closing

Status: NEW => RESOLVED
Resolution: (none) => FIXED