How to setup a Linux system that can boot directly from a software RAID

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This article describes how to setup a Linux system that can boot directly from a software RAID-1

device using GRUB. Even if one of the disks in the RAID array fails, the system can still boot. The

example uses Fedora Core 4.

System configuration

The test system is equipped with two 4GB IDE hard disks, one connected as master device on first

IDE channel (/dev/hda), the other connected as master device on second IDE channel (/dev/hdc). A

DVD-ROM reader is connected as slave device to the first IDE channel (/dev/hdb).

The goal is to setup a RAID-1 device to mount as / and to boot from. Another RAID-1 device will be

used as swap, to have a fault tolerant page swapping.

RAID-1 device Mount point Bootable Software RAID devices

/dev/md0 / Yes /dev/hda1, /dev/hdc1

/dev/md1 swap No /dev/hda2, /dev/hdc2

A real scenario just needs to provide a RAID-1 /dev/md0 that can be of any size (provided it is

enough hold the linux installation) and composed of any software RAID-1 partitions (each partition

in the array should reside on a different physical disk, possibly connect to different IDE channels, to

achieve maximum fault tolerance).

More complex configurations could include others RAID-1 devices to mount as /home, /usr, etc.

Installing and partitioning

Start the installation as usual booting from Fedora 4 DVD

and proceed until the Disk Partitioning Setup page is reached, then select “Manually partition with

Disk Druid”