BigDiver

Although this procedure is not taken from the Managing RIAD on Linux, you should still get it because it is a great book!

Managing RAID on Linux

After many, many attempts to get software RAID working on both Debian and Ubuntu the system would always lockup during boot and would not do any thing after that.
The system wont boot after a fresh install.

After banging my head a few hundred times I finally found a procedure that works!!!!!!

Install Ubuntu or Debian as you normally would, and configure RAID right from the installer. Once the installation is done the server will not boot, how stupid is that. what you need to do now is to insert the Ubuntu CD again and boot in Rescue mode.

Once the rescue mode reaches the disk partitioning screen press ESC and Select “Execurte a Shell” from the list.

Now mount your boot device, which you can do with

mount /dev/md0 /mntchroot /mnt

Now you should use grub to write the MBR to both disks. Type

grub

if you get an error like

'Error opening terminal: bterm'

just set your terminal to something else like so:

export TERM=linux

You may not see a clear display, meaning the lines will overlap but it works. Now run grub again.

For disk 1:

grub
device (hd0) /dev/hda
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)
quit

For Disk 2:

grub
device (hd1) /dev/hdb
root (hd1,0)
setup (hd1)
quit

If you’re not sure which devices you have just do:

cat /boot/grub/device.map

Should look like this:

(hd0)   /dev/hda
(hd1)   /dev/hdb

Use those! After doing this reboot your server, and you should now be able to boot your machine using RAID!
You should repeat this procedure every time you rebuild your RAID set or upgrade your Kernel.

If you want to give virtualization a try, please intall the Free VMware Server.
You can get it from here.
Remeber to register your product in order to get the free license.

You’ll need both the server package and the Management Interface packacge installed on your server. Then you can either use the Linux or Windows Console.

su -
cd /usr/lib
ln -s libm.so libm.so.6
apt-get install libxi6

In order to compile the VMware modules you’ll need the Kernel headers

apt-get install kernel-headers-`uname -r`

If you don’t have an X11 server installed then you must intall the Xlibs as well

apt-get install xlibs

After downloading the VMware-server-1.0.1-29996.tar.gz run
Copy the downloaded file to tmp and run

tar zxf VMware-server-1.0.1-29996.tar.gz
tar zxf VMware-mui-1.0.1-29996.tar.gz

Then run

cd vmware-server-distrib
./vmware-config.pl

cd ../vmware-mui-distrib
./vmware-install.pl

After the installation run

/etc/init.d/inet.d restart
/etc/init.d/httpd.vmware restart

Open the console type the server IP a user name and a password (root/passwd) and you’re set.