Software RAID and GRUB

When building out a system with a boot partition using software RAID, it is critical to install GRUB on both drives to that if one fails, the other can be used to boot the system.
1. Make sure that the RAID volume is synchronized (assuming /dev/md0 for /boot):

mdadm -D /dev/md0

2. Install grub on the first drive:

# grub
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.

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… yes
Checking if “/grub/stage2” exists… yes
Checking if “/grub/e2fs_stage1_5” exists… yes
Running “embed /grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)”…  15 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
Running “install /grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+15 p (hd0,0)/grub/stage2 /grub/menu.lst”… succeeded
Done.

3. Install grub on the second drive:

grub> root (hd1,0)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0xfd

grub> setup (hd1)
Checking if “/boot/grub/stage1” exists… no
Checking if “/grub/stage1” exists… yes
Checking if “/grub/stage2” exists… yes
Checking if “/grub/e2fs_stage1_5” exists… yes
Running “embed /grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd1)”…  15 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
Running “install /grub/stage1 (hd1) (hd1)1+15 p (hd1,0)/grub/stage2 /grub/menu.lst”… succeeded
Done.

grub> quit
That should allow booting from either drive without modification of grub.conf or /etc/fstab.


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