How to reestablish/reconfigure a RAIDframe RAID1 system?

[i.m.martinsen]

Dear community.

I am running NetBSD v6.0 on a system with 3 disks. wd0 and wd1 is (or
was!) configured
in a NetBSD partition occupying the whole disk(s) with slice A configured as a
RAIDframe RAID1 filesystem (one large root partition) and slice B configured as
a swap partition.

On wd2 I was preparing to install NetBSD v6.1.4 and apparently I was
able to do so,
but whenever I tried to boot the system on wd2 it did not finish the
boot-sequence,
because somehow the RAID filesystem was read and defined as root file
system instead
of the root file system on wd2.

I tried to reconfigure my RAID filesystem with

raidctl -A yes raid0
and
raidctl -A no raid0

and in each case reboot the system on wd2, but in both cases the
boot-sequence is
hanging. Unfortunately I am unable to get a copy of the boot logs, but
the end of
them says something like this (when trying to boot on wd2):

WARNING: double match for boot device (wd0, wd1)
boot device: wd0
root on wd0a dumps on wd0b
root file system type: ffs
warning: lookup /dev/console: error 13
exec /sbin/init: error 13
init: trying /sbin/oinit
exec /sbin/oinit: error 13
init: trying /sbin/init.bak
exec /sbin/init.bak: error 13
init path (default: /sbin/init):

and finally I am left with a choice between "absolute path", "ddb",
"halt" or "reboot"

I remember from earlier boots where the RAIDframe system was configuered with

raidctl -A yes raid0

that the correct boot parameters were

boot device: raid0a
swap device: wd0b
file system type: ffs
init: /sbin/init

but I am unable to supply these parameters.

My BIG problem is now that I am unable to boot my system from any of
my wd0/wd1/wd2
disks and I need a way to reconfigure my RAID filesystem. How do I do that?

I am able to boot the system from a NetBSD install CD and drop out in
the command line.
I wonder if I will be able to reconfigure the RAID filesystem by using

raidctl -c <configuration file> raid0
raidctl -A root raid0

without destroying the data on the RAID filesystem?

The <configuration file> is the configuration file originally used for
creating the RAID
filesystem.

How should I proceed if this is not the way to do it?

I hope it is evident that I would very much like to recover my data on
the RAID filesystem.

Kind regards
Ib-Michael

[Eric Haszlakiewicz]

Post by i.m.martinsen
On wd2 I was preparing to install NetBSD v6.1.4 and apparently I was
able to do so,
but whenever I tried to boot the system on wd2 it did not finish the
boot-sequence,
because somehow the RAID filesystem was read and defined as root file
system instead
of the root file system on wd2.

What if you try "boot -a" from the boot menu, then explicitly tell it to use root on wd2?

Eric

[Ib-Michael Martinsen]

Post by Eric Haszlakiewicz

Post by i.m.martinsen
On wd2 I was preparing to install NetBSD v6.1.4 and apparently I was
able to do so,
but whenever I tried to boot the system on wd2 it did not finish the
boot-sequence,
because somehow the RAID filesystem was read and defined as root file
system instead
of the root file system on wd2.

What if you try "boot -a" from the boot menu, then explicitly tell it to use root on wd2?

It worked, sort of. I was able to get a "mixed" v6.0/v6.1.4 up and
running. Unfortunately it took me too long to discover I had a v6.0
netbsd kernel on the wd2 root filesystem. When that was fixed, v6.1.4
was running as expected.

Thank you for reminding me of the "boot -a" option. I had forgotten
all about that.

Kind regards
Ib-Michael

[Ib-Michael Martinsen]

| raidctl -c <configuration file> raid0
| raidctl -A root raid0
|
| without destroying the data on the RAID filesystem?
That should work, the raidctl -c is the "normal" way to configure a
raidset, when you are not using autoconfig - that destroys nothing.

Thank you. It worked like a charm!

I was a little unsure if the "raidctl -c" command was destructive, so
I wanted to be sure I took the right direction.

Kind regards
Ib-Michael