Debian software raid 1: boot from both disk

Question

I newly installed debian squeeze with software raid.The way I did was, as also given in this thread.

1. I have 2 HDD with 500 GB each. For each of them, I created 3 partitions (/boot, / and swap)
2. I selected the hard drive and created a new partition table
3. I created a new partition that was 1GB. I then specified to use the partition as a Physical Volume for RAID. and used for /boot and enabled bootable.
4. Created another partition, which is of 480 GB, and then specified to use the partition as a Physical Volume for RAID. and used for /.
5. Created another partion and used for swap

Then RAID configuration:

Through Configure RAID menu -> create MD device -> (2 for the number of drives, 0 for spare devices)

Next select the partitions you want to be members of /dev/MD0. I selected /dev/sda1 and /dev/sdb1 (for /boot) Next select the partitions you want to be members of /dev/MD1. I selected /dev/sda6 and /dev/sdb6 (for /) And no RAID for swap partitions

'Finish Partitioning and write changes to disk' --> Finish the rest of the install like normal

Everything is ok now, except I am not sure how to test my raid config. When I pull the power of the HDD, it only boots from one disk. I read in some forum that I may have to install GRUB manually on the other.

1. In Debian Squeeze, there is no grub command. Not sure how to make my software raid bootable from both disk.

2. Also, please comment on my steps above. Anything unusual. I configured /boot partitions of both disks to be boot=yes. Not sure whether that is ok.

Thanks,
Bsr

Solution 1

The above answer is too generic, and my question specifically was i couldn't find grub in debian squeeze.. after some reading, grub is deprecated for grub-pc (grub2). So to install it, I jut had to

grub-install /dev/sdb

Solution 2

Short answer : everything seems good to me, you need to run :

grub-install /dev/sdb

to install grub on the second disk, so you could boot from it to.

Read this, it explains how to setup more than two disks but you can apply it to you problem : How to setup a clean Linux system which can boot directly from a software RAID device.