[clug] Robust bootloader setups?

[Michael James]

Given:
A Suse system built on mirrored disks,
 ( using md for software raid ).
A separate /boot partition formatted ext2.

Should the /boot partition be on a mirror
 or should it be 2 distinct partitions
 mounted as /boot and /coot?

The mirrored partition mandates LILO,
 which simply calculates the position
 of the kernel and initrd files
 on the disk and accesses them directly.
ie: Go to HERE and run what you find.
If HERE gets corrupted, I'm stuffed
 (well, off booting knoppix or something).
So I've lost the benefit of mirroring. (haven't it?)

Surely it's better to have 2 un-mirrored partitions
 ( /dev/hda1 = /boot ,   /dev/hdc1 = /coot )
Use GRUB not LILO and set up both as options.

So to do a kernel upgrade, first do it
 then reboot, and if and only if it works then
 rsync -a --delete  /boot/  /coot/

If anything goes wrong (with the kernel or initrd)
 the "coot" option can get it booted again.
If the hda disk, or its MBR or its menu.lst file die,
 swapping BIOS to hdc should still work.
(Assuming GRUB is installed on the second disk too.)

Comments?

 
-- 
Michael James				michael at james.st
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