New mdadm Raid feature in 20210127-groovy
A partition and disk imaging/cloning program
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From what I can tell, can't seem to locate any doc or info, this allows
me to use partition based backup of an mdadm mirror (at a minimum). And
I did get that to work, great new feature! It recognized md127 array.
However, I was surprised when I wanted to do a full disk backup, as, it
said it was removing raid partitions, which it did.
My question is this - are not both methods, partition and whole disk
using partclone by default? If partclone can handle the partition in
partition based backup, why can't it in full disk backup (all partitions)?
Love the new autoname formats for time stuff!
--
Steve Fatula
"when I wanted to do a full disk backup, as, it
said it was removing raid partitions, which it did." -> What did you mean by this?
Could you please explain more? Or take some photos about the messages on the screen then post them?
Thanks.
Steven
Start Clonezilla, pick device-image, pick where to save to, choose expert mode, here is the difference. if you choose saveparts, it allows you to pick all 3 partitions. if I choose savedisk however, it will only save 2 of them. Notice in the photo parition 2 (raid) is missing.
In saveparts mode, it allows me to choose them all. Hopefully, that clarifies.
Oh, since it's difficult to tell something like /dev/md126 is a partition or disk. It's recommended to use startparts and restoreparts for this type of device. However, the RAID device on the system has to be created first. So far we can not find a good way to save the RAID device config and restore it.
In summary, the RAID device type is not well supported by Clonezilla.
Steven
Ok, seemed odd saveparts finds it but savedisk does not. As far as getting the configuration to rebuild goes, I already tested the backup of the mirror and it works perfectly. If I needed to rebuild the array, I can do so. I tested restoring and all files were there.
For saving the config, on a running system, running mdadm -v --detail --scan will provide all of the info needed to build the array I believe. For my running system, this yields:
ARRAY /dev/md/0 level=raid1 num-devices=2 metadata=1.2 name=Server:0 UUID=a3bdecc6:36ef680c:83afd2e0:0f5b89c6
devices=/dev/nvme0n1p2,/dev/nvme1n1p2
This may work even if you are booted from your boot drive, not tried it that way but could if you want. From that data, the create command would be:
mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=raid1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/nvme0n1p2 /dev/nvme1n1p2
Last edit: Steve Fatula 2021-03-06
Thanks for sharing that. There are maybe different combinations for the scanning output, and not sure if there is a better way which mdadm supports to save the config and it can be used to rebuild the RAID. If you know that, please let us know. Thanks.
Steven
AFAIK, that is the way to get the information. It should support all raid levels. I don't have any other current level on any machine I am using, perhaps someone with a raid 5, 6, anything but mirror could execute the command and post here.
Thanks. I was looking for that, but did not succeed. If there is such a method, then the RAID will be supported better by Clonezilla.
Steven