[CentOS] Install CentOS 6.3 to partitionable mdadm array

[Hal Martin]

On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Nux! <nux at li.nux.ro> wrote:
> On 07/11/12 15:10, Hal Martin wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I'm trying to install CentOS 6.3 to an mdadm partitionable array and
>> not having any luck.
>>
>> The installer only allows me to create one file system per md device,
>> or specify the md device as a LVM physical volume. I don't want to do
>> either, I want to create one md device and create multiple partitions
>> on top of the md device.
>>
>> I thought that perhaps the installer was preventing me from doing this
>> because it wasn't possible to boot off a partitionable mdadm array,
>> but through googling I don't believe this is the case. (See links at
>> the bottom of this email)
>>
>> I've tried the graphical installer and the text-mode installer, and
>> neither gives me the ability to install to a partitionable mdadm
>> array.
>>
>> Even more annoying is that if I manually create such an array,
>> partition it and create file systems, the installer will stop the
>> array when starting the partitioning utility, preventing me from
>> installing to the partitions I created.
>>
>> Is there an advanced mode in the installer that I can force it to
>> install to a partitionable md device, or is that not an option? I'd
>> like to avoid having multiple md devices on the same physical drives,
>> and unfortunately the application I'm installing doesn't place nicely
>> with LVM.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Hal
>
> Hello Hal,
>
> AFAIK installing on to partitionable md is  a hack that is not
> supported; it's cool, but is not supported by upstream. And when it
> breaks I hear it can be quite unpleasant to fix.
> What are your requirements exactly? Maybe we can advise an alternative
> partitioning etc.

The software we're testing does not support being installed on LVM, so
if we want vendor support we need to install it on a partition.

Hardware RAID is going to be used for deployment, but for lab testing
we were hoping to use mdadm and avoid buying expensive RAID
controllers.

Creating multiple RAID arrays looks like the only supported solution,
although it's quite annoying when partitonable md support would make
it much simpler.

Was it ever supported upstream? Or did it fall out of favour when LVM
became a popular installation method?

-Hal

>
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>
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