Root-on-LVM-on-RAID HOWTO
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2. Overview

It will be now presented an overview of the overall install process.

In a few words the process of installing root over RAID and LVM consists in interrupting normal install at the very beginning, loading RAID and LVM support, configuring RAID arrays and LVM volumes, installing a kernel with RAID and LVM support and then completing a normal install.

Here are more detailed installation steps:

  1. Start Debian woody 3.0 installation booting with bf2.4 kernel.

  2. Open a shell.

  3. Load an extdisk with RAID and LVM support.

  4. Partition hard disks.

  5. Create RAID arrays: create one boot array and at least one additional array.

  6. Start LVM.

  7. Create LVM physical volumes: one for each additional RAID array (not for the boot array).

  8. Create LVM volume groups.

  9. Create LVM logical volumes.

  10. Create and activate swap space.

  11. Create file systems.

  12. Create mount points and mount target file systems.

  13. Return to main install menu.

  14. Install a kernel with RAID and LVM support (if using stock bf2.4 Debian kernel, if not skip this point).

  15. Configure network.

  16. Install base system.

  17. Open a shell and chroot into target file system.

  18. Configure APT.

  19. Install a kernel with RAID and LVM support (if using a custom kernel, if already installed the stock Debian kernel skip this point).

  20. Install RAID and LVM packages: lvm10, initrd-tools, raidtools2 and mdadm.

  21. Optional: install devfsd.

  22. Start LVM (reprise).

  23. Install RAM disk with LVM support.

  24. Modify configuration files (/etc/raidtab, /etc/fstab, /etc/lilo.conf, /etc/modules).

  25. Write lilo configuration to disk.

  26. Exit from chrooted environment.

  27. Return to main install menu.

  28. Reboot the system (reboot from hard disk, not from install CDROM).

  29. Terminate installation.

NoteNote
 

The kernel install step can be done at different moments; if the stock Debian kernel is to be used is more convenient to do that before chrooting into target file systems, while if a custom kernel is to be used it is suggested to do that after chrooting. Look at section RAID and LVM support loaded as a module vs statically linked for more details.

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Introduction Before starting install