Bug#688948: grub-common: GRUB fails to boot from 2-disk-RAID1 when sda failed

[Andre Tann]

Package: grub-common
Version: 1.98+20100804-14+squeeze1
Severity: important


Hello everyone,

after one of my servers went down with a broken HD, it didn't want to reboot
anymore. Reason: the server was on RAID1 with sda an sdb, and the broken HD was
sda.

Subsequently I made numerous squeeze test-installations with a RAID 1 on two
disks to find out how a system must be installed so that it boots no matter if
sda or sdb fails.

As a result I found no way how this could be done.

On the german debian mailing list one answer was I should use grub-legacy.
Indeed, with this one installed onto sda and sdb, the system boots after
removing sda.
The whole thread (in german) can be found here:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user-german/2012/07/msg00338.html

What I expect is that the system boots when grub is installed onto sda and sdb
(i.e.: dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc, and check sda and sdb in the dialogue), and sda
fails (i.e.: is removed from the system).

Of course grub should also boot when sdb fails, but this works ;)

Thanks for reading.



-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0.5
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages grub-common depends on:
ii  base-files            6.0squeeze5        Debian base system miscellaneous f
ii  dpkg                  1.15.8.12          Debian package management system
ii  gettext-base          0.18.1.1-3         GNU Internationalization utilities
ii  install-info          4.13a.dfsg.1-6     Manage installed documentation in 
ii  libc6                 2.11.3-3           Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libdevmapper1.02.1    2:1.02.48-5        The Linux Kernel Device Mapper use
ii  libfreetype6          2.4.2-2.1+squeeze4 FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii  zlib1g                1:1.2.3.4.dfsg-3   compression library - runtime

Versions of packages grub-common recommends:
ii  os-prober                     1.42       utility to detect other OSes on a 

Versions of packages grub-common suggests:
pn  grub-emu                      <none>     (no description available)
pn  multiboot-doc                 <none>     (no description available)
pn  xorriso                       <none>     (no description available)

-- no debconf information