Cant install grub to raid10 /boot

[Art_X]

okay so this is where i fell down before with grub, according to the wiki

http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/RAID/Software

Since the /boot partition is a RAID, grub cannot read it to get the bootloader. It can only access physical drives. Thus, you still use (hd0,0) in this step.
Run grub:
grub --no-floppy
You must see GRUB prompt:
grub>

If you are using a RAID 1 mirror disk system, you will want to install grub on all the disks in the system, so that when one disk fails, you are still able to boot. The find command above will list the disks, e.g.
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
 (hd0,0)
 (hd1,0)
grub>

and this is what i get

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1

Error 15: File not found


also tried


grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
Error 12: Invalid device requested

grub> root (hd0,0)
 Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0xfd

grub> setup (hd0)
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no
 Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... no

Error 15: File not found

ls /boot/grub
default     e2fs_stage1_5  ffs_stage1_5  iso9660_stage1_5  menu.lst        reiserfs_stage1_5  stage1  stage2_eltorito  vstafs_stage1_5
device.map  fat_stage1_5   grub.conf     jfs_stage1_5      minix_stage1_5  splash.xpm.gz      stage2  ufs2_stage1_5    xfs_stage1_5

should i just be pointing it to /dev/grub ?

edit: seems grub (legacy) has issues with raid10, should I try grub2 or break md0 and make it raid1?

[Karl L.]

I would defintely say try GRUB 2. It has long since surpassed GRUB Legacy's feature set and reliability. While I have no experience with RAID 10, GRUB 2 works perfectly on my Debian Squeeze box with RAID 1.

[Art_X]

After much digging and getting some response from the Gentoo forum, it does indeed seem that raid10 is the issue, I will remake it as raid1 and keep the others as raid10

[Karl L.]

Good to know that you got it working. Would you mind posting a link to the Gentoo discussion though? It might help someone else who stumbles across this thread, and I'm a little curious.

PS: I'd also be interested to know why you chose GRUB Legacy over GRUB 2.

[Art_X]

Havent got it working yet, decided to redo the whole thing, went with grub as that is what the wiki advised if you are using the old 0.90 superblock for autoraid, I could use grub2 shouldn't be that much in it, should just need to add dolvm and domdadm in grub file

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-943666.html

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-943156.html

[Karl L.]

Thanks for the links! That thread is very interesting (and informative). I've never done anything of the sort before.

I have great respect for the Gentoo developers, but I, along with many other Debian developers it seems, often philosophically disagree with them. For the most part this tends to stem from their reluctance to embrace new ways of doing things. (Take a look at the Gentoo systemd discussion.) They make Debian developers look liberal in that regard -- and that's really saying something! I suspect that's why they (or the Gentoo wiki) recommended GRUB Legacy over GRUB 2.

[Art_X]

all sorted now, its encrypted, have added keys to the raid so i dont have to enter a passphrase, had to go with raid1 for /boot - just updating it and putting im a few things i require :) - as for grub and such, like with most things on gentoo it is there but masked, you can use it if you wish, and then use the forums for help should you require it, it will hit the stable branch in time :)

[n_K]

GRUB2 is better than GRUB original in the features it provides, other than that, GRUB legacy trumples GRUB2 in all aspects.

You can boot up to GRUB and boot anything from the command line, for GRUB2 you'd need a book to lookup and type all the rubbish it needs.

Also why would anyone switch from a reliable fully-proven system that's been in use mostly flawlessly for years to a newer system (systemd) that's lined with bugs, much slower, and doesn't actually have any enhancements?

[Karl L.]

GRUB2 is better than GRUB original in the features it provides, other than that, GRUB legacy trumples GRUB2 in all aspects.

You can boot up to GRUB and boot anything from the command line, for GRUB2 you'd need a book to lookup and type all the rubbish it needs.

Also why would anyone switch from a reliable fully-proven system that's been in use mostly flawlessly for years to a newer system (systemd) that's lined with bugs, much slower, and doesn't actually have any enhancements?

I completely disagree with you. However, I beg you, please don't start this discussion again. You can read a thorough discussion of all sides of this issue on debian-devel here and here. Its gotten nearly as bad as the Windows 8 love/hate threads. (I said nearly. Its not quite that bad yet!)

[n_K]

I completely disagree with you. However, I beg you, please don't start this discussion again. You can read a thorough discussion of all sides of this issue on debian-devel here and here. Its gotten nearly as bad as the Windows 8 love/hate threads. (I said nearly. Its not quite that bad yet!)

Interesting reads.

My point isn't that systemd isn't worth anything, it's that it's been released in a junk state. I switched gdm for xdm now, the first 2 boots it was fine, bit slow to open, but fine. Since then, on every boot, it doesn't load xdm up at all, if I login as root and start is using systemctl then it'll open. There's some other programs that haven't worked either and have needed their systemd files changing so they actually run. If I worked for a bank and replaced their whole system with something that sometimes didn't bother carrying out transactions - I'd be fired, instantly and sued for damages. Systemd is incomplete, if they had waited until it was stable and working with the majority of software, then it'd be worthwhile releasing.

[Karl L.]

OK, n_k; maybe we agree a little more than I previous thought. I apologize for judging you so quickly.

Honestly, based on what I have read about Arch's switch to systemd, your problems seem to be mostly related to the Arch developer's tendency to jump first. In some cases that's a good thing. Arch is known for having bleeding-edge packages, unlike slower-moving-but-more-stable distributions like Debian. If you take a look at the current status of systemd in Debian Wheezy/Sid, its in similar shape. However, unlike Arch, Debian is still shipping sysvinit as the default in Wheezy; systemd will likely make its appearance as default in Jesse.