Re: [gentoo-user] RAID-1 on secondary disks how?

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 1:54 PM Grant Taylor
<gtaylor@×××××××××××××××××××××.net> wrote:
>
> On 01/29/2019 10:58 AM, Rich Freeman wrote:
> > Can't say I've tried it recently, but I'd be shocked if it changed much.
> > The linux kernel guys generally consider this somewhat deprecated
> > behavior, and prefer that users use an initramfs for this sort of thing.
> > It is exactly the sort of problem an initramfs was created to fix.
>
> I see no reason to use an initramfs (swingroot) if the kernel can do
> what is needed by itself.

Personally I use dracut on boxes with a single ext4 partition...  To
each his own.  I don't see the value in using a different
configuration on a box simply because it happens to work on that
particular box.  Dracut is a more generic solution that allows me to
keep hosts the same.

> > Honestly, I'd just bite the bullet and use dracut if you want your OS
> > on RAID/etc.
>
> You obviously have a different opinion than Alan and I do.

Thank you!  :)

> > It is basically a one-liner at this point to install and a relatively
> > small tweak to your GRUB config (automatic if using mkconfig).
>
> The dracut command may be a one-liner.  But the alteration to the system
> and it's boot & mount process is CONSIDERABLY more significant.

Kinda sorta.  The kernel boots one distro which then chroots and execs
another.  The initramfs follows the exact same rules as any other
userspace rootfs.

> > Dracut will respect your mdadm.conf, and just about all your other
> > config info in /etc.  The only gotcha is rebuilding your initramfs if
> > it drastically changes (but, drastically changing your root filesystem
> > is something that requires care anyway).
>
> I can think of some drastic changes to the root file system that would
> not require changing the kernel, boot loader, or command line options.

Sure, and I wouldn't expect them to require rebuilding your initramfs
either.  I was speaking generally.

-- 
Rich