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Building ATA RAID and SMP Support into Slackware 9
TheMadPenguin writes "This HOWTO will describe the steps necessary to build support into Slackware Linux 9.0 for
Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) and a Promise Ultra ATA RAID redundant drive array. By default, there is no support for these configurations unless specified through a kernel recompilation after the initial install."
If you choose to run Slackware, wouldn't you know how to do this?
:-P
There are so many people that wanna run Linux and heard that slack is the coolest and most "pro" way to do it. Sickens me.
Ciryon
Building ATA RAID and SMP Support into Your Kernel
Those complaints asside, the guy knows what he's doing, so if you want to run RAID or SMP on your kernel, give it a read.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
From the office of Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf (aka Baghdad Bob):
"Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) and a Promise Ultra ATA RAID redundant drive arrays in Linux do not exist! It is a trick by the coalition forces!"
More at 11.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
As I see it there is nothing drastically different with Slack to require a Slack specific HOWTO.
l
This only complicates things more.
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Kernel-HOWTO.htm
Would have sufficed,
Adrian
It's 7:08 PM.
9 minues
It is easier/better/more difficut BUT more rewarding in Gentoo.
it's news because it is new (Posted on Saturday, April 12 @ 18:31:18 EDT ).
that said, like the original poster, if you're running slack you should know how to add stuff like this without reading a howto.
though maybe it saves few minutes for some people.. and gives distribution ranters some online time.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
all you need is to have the OS recognize and support the RAID controller. Actual RAID array building and configuring is a manual hardware task...
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
OK, how about this for an idea. With Linux, support for most devices is already built in, and either "just works" or needs a recompile. How about, then, a set of diffs for different devices that you can apply to your /boot/config file to enable support? This way, people won't have to look up the HOWTOs and edit the file manually, but either get the diff direct from the Linux-savvy manufacturer or go to an unoffical webpage (like this one) and get it from there?
So first you look up your device, then you apply the diff to your config file, then you recompile, then your device works.
Am I missing out on anything? This would be very handy, and significantly reduce possibilities for manual-editing-screwups.
They really do not exist! Our valiant troops destroyed SMP support along with hundreds of the American criminals. Today alone we destroyed over 500 American tanks and over 40 of the evil zionist kernel modules.
Former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf
When someone waltzes into #slackware and demands that someone help him get it working, they can all yell back, with perfectly synconized timestamps, "RTFM or switch to Mandrake!"
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
. . . if my Mom has to recompile the kernel just to get symmetric multiprocessing support and a working ATA raid array for chrissake??!!!
-----
Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
It's better to use Slackware's kernel-source-2.4.20-noarch-5.tgz package, since it already contains patches for some ext3 bugs as well as the recent ptrace exploit.
If you do use the original 2.4.20 tarball in the source/k directory, you will need to apply the linux-2.4.20.ptrace.diff.gz that you'll find in the same directory, and if you use ext3, you'll also want to apply the patches from the ext3-patches directory.
Thanks, I haven't laughed that hard in years. BTW, you are an idoit.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
Hey, can I be a god too?
No, how to configure a FTP and Telnet server is next, then we tackle the ethernet issue.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
What's the point of this how-to again? All you need to do is recompile your kernel with those options built in. If you don't know how to recompile your kernel I think you have some more general linux reading to do.
I don't think this is true, even if it used to be. I'm still pretty new to linux, and I use Slack. I use slack because it respects standards. For instance, I was using Red Hat, and whenever I would ask my linux friends how to do something, they would reply with something along the lines of "just add such and such a line to such and such a file." Using Red Hat, this didn't work, because Red Hat put a lot of its configuration stuff in weird places. Now I'm using Slackware (installed with the help of a friend) and I'm learning linux faster than ever - and loving it.
The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches. -- ee cummings
"I compiled kernels for use on IBM X series e-server SMP systems and ServeRaid (ips) or MTP Fusion Chipsets...plus sound card support"
Bah. Bigass systems, big disk arrays, whatever.
it's cool that you got the sound working though...
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
how to get this slackware 9 raid smp to work on my MAndrake?
Inspired by actual questions in #linux...
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Mind you, Linux is a fairly complicated OS to manage and maintain. Trying to use and maintain Linux simply requires quite a bit of understanding on how it works as nearly everyone knows. Trying to use Linux without reading up on basic things (like kernel recompiles) and understandin them is like driving a car without experience or a license.
The "Everyone should be able to do everything" idea is what's wrong with computers in general these days. No, John Doe does NOT need to set up an IIS webserver that came with his pirated Windows XP Pro CD. Keep things simple for users instead. Easier for them to understand and easier for professionals to maintain. (Even though I know "professionals" who should be banned from using computers, ugh.)
Hate me!
No. You can be a badly-abused servant of the gods if you like, though.
Slackware was the easy distribution!
Lol, how far things have come.
EXTRAVERSION = -smp_raid
Then you'll have two entries under
I've used Linux for about 6 years, and although I'm no guru, I've gone through many installs of every major distro on quite a few different machines. This time, upgrading from Slack 8.1, I got bad vibes from the start. The installer flaked out on me during partition setup, having to get the kernel sources separately is annoying (particularly since I have to have them to install Nvidia drivers) and overall I got the feeling that the whole thing was just slapped together. This is disapointing since the creator of Slackware went to the same college I did. (Go Dragons)
./configure, chasing down libraries, fixing compiler errors, and such in order to setup programs. I like being able to download a program and just click the bastard to run. I do seriously hope that along with the 2.6 kernel and a more desktop-friendly outlook, more developers will make thier programs more friendly to install for the average joe.
So I downloaded Mandrake 9.1, installed it, and I haven't had a problem.
Since I'm ranting about ease of use anyway, and maybe using my Imac is starting to jade me, but I'm getting tired of running
Nikkos
And in other news: Today, April 12th, is cosmonauts day, Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space in 1961.
Again, for the billionth time, folks, /usr/src/linux IS NOT supposed to be a symlink to the current kernel sources.
/usr/src/linux SHOULD link to the kernel headers in place when glibc was compiled.
/usr/src/linux-2.5.25
/usr/src/linux-2.2.19
/usr/src/linux->linux-2.2.19
Therefore you may safely have
uname -r
Linux 2.5.25
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This HOWTO will describe the steps necessary to build support into Slackware Linux 9.0 for [...] RAID redundant drive array.
...or even a RAID redundant independent drive array, or a RAID redundant array of independent (or inexpensive) drives (or disks). Hey, that's getting a little long...maybe an acronym would be useful here. How about: RAID RAID!
Tune in next week when the poster describes how to set up NIC Cards on your PC Computer using only OSS Software from the FSF Foundation.
And people wonder why Linux isn't ready for primetime. Here's a "HOWTO" for installing Promise RAID drivers during a Windows XP install:
Press F6.
Well, I dunno... IIRC Linus has mentioned that multiple times, but I've been symlinking my latest source directory to /usr/src/linux for several years now (from 2.0.32 or so), and I've never once struck a problem.
But, if you're paranoid, I suppose it's good advice.
It's also kind of like how when I was a kid, my grandpa would be proud to have us all dig a ditch with shovels rather than use the Caterpiller backhoe that was sitting on the property.
If you've invested lots of time in 'Hard', then 'Easy' earns contempt from bitter people.
--
Power to the Peaceful
You won't have a problem until you upgrade glibc.
Actually, you probably won't have a problem until you upgrade glibc and THEN run something you've compiled afterwards. Then shit should get interesting.
Believe me, it's not something you want to try to track down, cause once you find out all that trouble could've been solved if you hadn't done something Linus himself told you not to do, you'll feel stupider than a win95 user.
-jpeg
About Promise RAID controllers: When running a mirror, or a spanned mirror, what is the sychronization software for? The controller should be writing the same data to both hard drives. Promise tech support has never been able to answer this.
The readme file says this:
"- SYNCHRONIZATION
This is a maintenance operation for Mirrored (RAID1) arrays. It will compare data on drives for differences. If there are differences it will automatically copy data from the first disk to the second disk in the array. This needs to be performed periodically to maintain data integrity."
Also, have you ever had problems with the array falling apart when there is no hardware failure?
I have ASUS P4S8X mobo and RH9 doesn't support not only RAID (which is based on PDC20368 if I'm not mistaken) but network adapter and sound, too. This is a very popular board, so it would be great for a lot of folks to know how to make Linux work on it.
"The first low-cost, high-performance RAID 5 host adapter with all the RAID features you want, at a price you won't believe [about $150]" was touted to work under RedHat Linux, however I have been unable to coax it to work under Gentoo or FreeBSD.
(gnashes teeth)
Oh no another Desktop OS Moron. Slackware is normally used in things like servers. Therefore your comment is redundant.
-- RTFM:Slackware::Beer:Saturday
Funny thing is, I *have* actually upgraded my glibc while doing that, and not struck any problems (then again, I may just have been lucky).
I want each of you who responded to the parent post to focus on me as best you can. Looking right at me? Okay, here we go:
That was a joke. But I'm glad you all spoke up in defense of Slackware and Moms everywhere, because you have illustrated a very important point that might be useful to the Slashdot community as a whole, which is:
IF YOU'RE HIGH, DON'T GO TO PUBLIC PLACES AND TRY TO MAKE A POINT.
Weed is meant for simpler things. But if you really want to post high, make it something we can all enjoy, like:
"Don't you get it? What we call 'humans' are just quantum clouds floating in open space!"
-- or --
"No seriously - if we all just grew one fucking tree and sent the fruit to somebody, there would be no hunger! None!"
Better yet, just kick back with your Kazaa rip of 'Freddie Got Fingered' and your beef jerky and have a cool night at home.
The only acceptable defense of scientific results is to say that they were the product of the Scientific Method.
While that crap may make your life easier if your idea of a Linux Manual is 'Linux for Dummies', Slack's bare-bones BSD-ish layout is absolutely wonderful for those of us who work on systems running numerous Unix's and admin from the shell/SSH. All I need is vi and a working compiler and I can admin my box.
Kudzu, Anaconda and Drak are more trouble than they're worth for a sysadmin. They are pretty nice for Joe user though, who wants a desktop system that doesn't require large amounts of knowledge.
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
Many operating systems do thing there "own way". Just because Windows does the same doesn't mean its some nonstandard mess. Windows like it or not is in fact the "standard" for operating systems.
So really if you can't figure out the Windows way then your out of touch with what the majority think of as the one true operating system. Also its a lot more likely that most people would know how to configure Windows than a minority OS like Linux.
I'm not playing favorites here, that's just how it is and only someone in total denial would argue against Windows popularity.
If it makes you feel better you may now say some stuff about how Windows is bloated or something.
Stumbling in the dark
I hear slavering of jaws
Eaten by a grue.
While I am perfectly willing to accept your prose as gospel, I'm interested in knowing some background information about why doing what you say is a Good Thing.
/usr/src/linux symlinked to whatever kernel I happen to be running this week. Nary a problem.
I've been running Slackware for eight years, with
So, please educate - even if it is for the billionth+1 time.
Kid-proof tablet..
This is ONLY true if your system boneheadedly sets up the /usr/lib kernel header classes as symlinks into /usr/src/linux rather than copying them. Gentoo and LFS aren't like that, I'm not sure which linux distro's still do this.
There's plenty of info available googling - check the lkml archives for Linus' position on the subject.
/usr/src is a system directory. When you compile libs, /usr/src/linux is where your system is going to look for symbol/function definitions. These must be the same headers that glibc was compiled with.
basically,
otherwise, look at my reply to the other reply. My experience was upgrading glibc, upgrading the kernel (changing the symlink), and proceeding to compile perl, openssl, apache, et al. IIRC, openssl was what bombed. It's been a while, and this was on an alpha, which has had its own issues.
-jpeg
Thanks for the info, MadPenguin. I've been using my ATA RAID controller as just another IDE controller. I've been too lazy to fiddle with it since Slack 8.1, and haven't needed the extra speed or redundancy (Slack with ReiserFS is really fast). I recently installed Slack 9, but I will keep this FAQ in mind when I upgrade to an Opteron machine with a new ATA RAID controller.
First off, this is by no means ment to be a flame of any type.
That said, why would someone who wanted use a promise controller (RAID) under any O.S.? If you want mirroring, there is the 3ware 2 chan cards, and if you want more, there are the 4+ chan cards. And, the last time I looked, you had to run the mknod command about a dozen times to get things to maybe work. *searches for major/minor #'s*
And as far as SMP? Anyone running SMP should know how to RTFM, at a very min.
One other thing, if your sysadmin is considering deploying *nix for the users, there is a better then fair chance she/he knows how to K.I.S.S it for the users...
OK, rant compleated, we now return you to your regurlar scheduled insomnia...
I have no need for a
This ins't a troll but why does this howto exist? Doesn't the Linux Raid and SMP HOWTO cover this. TLDP.org is all you need
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
maybe you should have looked at UPGRADE.TXT located in the root directory of the Slackware CD-ROM, it is as informative as it is useful. Can you guess why? Because Patrick Volkerding wrote it, and he hopes that you read it before trying to upgrade by running the Slackware installer, which, by the way, has nothing to do with upgrading.
overall I got the feeling that the whole thing was just slapped together.
Strangely enough, I got the feeling that Slackware 9.0 is an extremely well integrated and refined operating system, one which undoubtedly took many hours of hard labor to assemble.
By the way, the system I am currently running is running Slackware 9.0, upgraded from 8.0, which was upgraded from 7.1 by following the instructions in UPGRADE.TXT (here's a little trivia, how many people upgraded from Slack 4 to 7? that's right, none. I was initially very afraid of upgraded because of the strict warning in 7.0's UPGRADE.TXT, but it has worked fine ever since). Everything works perfectly. But as they say, different strokes for different folks. Some prefer the simplicity of Microsoft Windows. On the other end of the spectrum, some prefer the simplicity of Slackware Linux. What 'sucks' to you probably 'rocks' to someone else. I think Windows is shit, but for some reason, millions of other people seem do disagree. Oh what a tragedy.
Well, I suppose you'd start by compiling the support into the kernel and then, uh, run it?
Join Tor today!
I recall installaing a RAID on RedHat 7.1, it was a bit trickier though, but it did the job.....
The lunatic is in my head
Here's a "HOWTO" for installing Promise RAID drivers during a Windows 2000 Server install:
Press F6.
Better?
I don't think any modern and popular Linux distro does this. I know Slack doesn't.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
I realise this is probably flamebait, but I'll bite.
Calling Windows the 'standard' for Operating Systems is similar to calling McDonalds the 'standard' for food.
Sure, it's the 'standard' for fast food, whatever that may be, in much the same way that windows is the standard for desktop systems, but Windows has far less server market share than everything else out there put together.
I'm not saying it doesn't have the single largest percentage of installed machines, merely that it's not the 'standard' and doesn't even have a clear majority on the back end.
You're doing it wrong.
She might be using Slackintosh. But I think there's about an ice cube's chance in hell that anyone's mom is using Slackware, let alone Slackintosh on a new G4 power Mac...
How can I have missed something so obvious.
It sucks to be me.
I'll throw my sorry self in a cage full of hungry penguins. DO not blame anybody for my untimely but just demise.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.