From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Sep 5 03:36:39 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AB41316A417 for ; Wed, 5 Sep 2007 03:36:39 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jmc-freebsdquestions@sociology.osu.edu) Received: from mail.sociology.ohio-state.edu (mail.sociology.ohio-state.edu [128.146.219.4]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 4783813C458 for ; Wed, 5 Sep 2007 03:36:39 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jmc-freebsdquestions@sociology.osu.edu) Received: (qmail 91784 invoked by uid 1224); 5 Sep 2007 03:09:57 -0000 Received: from 128.146.218.128 (jmc@128.146.218.128) by mail.sociology.ohio-state.edu (envelope-from , uid 82) with qmail-scanner-2.01 (uvscan: v5.1.00/v5112. clamdscan: 0.91.1/4156. Clear:RC:0(128.146.218.128):. Processed in 0.784454 secs); 05 Sep 2007 03:09:57 -0000 Received: from bc128.sociology.ohio-state.edu (HELO ?128.146.218.128?) (jmc@128.146.218.128) by smtp.sociology.ohio-state.edu with SMTP; 5 Sep 2007 03:09:56 -0000 Message-ID: <46DE1E05.8030706@sociology.osu.edu> Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2007 23:09:57 -0400 From: John Crawford User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.6 (Windows/20070728) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: gmirror and booting one and/or the other of the twins, then rebuilding raid 1 X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2007 03:36:39 -0000 Hello, I've found it helpful to take a raid 1 system, break the raid, and then be able to boot to either of the two system disks. Once I'm done with this split personality development and testing, I choose which of the two to keep, and then rebuild my raid 1 using that "kept" disk as the master. I can do this with bios controlled raid controllers easy enough. I'd like to do it with a gmirror'ed system. I'm using a procedure much like that described here to build my gmirror raid on freebsd 6.2. http://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/01/24/freebsd-howto-gmirror-system/ How could I play boot swap-a-roo on these twin disks? That is without pulling drive cables for data or power? I'd like to be able to boot either of the two drives. FreeBSD see's my devices even if I disable the drive "OFF" in bios, so that alone doesn't work. I suppose I could use kernel.conf and "di ad0" or "di ad2" to suppress drive hardware detection, but I'm hoping to do something simple (with a few keystrokes) during one of the boot stages to suppress one or another of the drive detections. I don't recall how to disable a given device during the an interactive boot procedure. And then of course, I'd like to be able to re-raid based on my preferred drive, repopulating the other. I'm not certain how best to manage this. Thanks for some ideas. John