"Brian A. Seklecki" writes:
> > > Although NetBSD is the primary platform for RAIDFrame development,
> > > it can naturally be found in OpenBSD and FreeBSD, however another
> > > in-kernel RAID system is being developed: Vinum
> > 
> > Although NetBSD is the primary platform for RAIDFrame development, it
> > can also be found in OpenBSD and FreeBSD.  NetBSD also has another
> > in-kernel RAID system called Vinum, but it will not be discussed here.
> > 
> 
> Right, this is better wording, but I didn't want to preclude OBSD users
> looking for a procedural reference, which I don't think that this does.

Actually.. I think I like this wording better:

Although NetBSD is the primary platform for RAIDFrame development,
RAIDframe can also be found in OpenBSD and FreeBSD.  A different 
in-kernel RAID system called Vinum is available on some of 
the *BSDs but it will not be discussed here.


> > > Unfortunately, there is no list dedicated to RAIDFrame support. 
> > 
> > Acutally.. there is... raidframe@cs.cmu.edu or maybe I should say
> > "was"...  the list has been horribly inactive, and I'm not sure if
> > anything I sent there in March of this year actually made it out :( 
> 
> So should I bother mentioning it?  I don't see a searchable list archive
> anywhere.

No.. 

> Perhaps, "There is no *NetBSD* list dedicated..."

That might be the best.

> > > other RAID levels should be considered
> > 
> > This implies RAID 1 wouldn't be appropriate... s/should/might/.
> > 
> 
> I have changed this to:
> 
> "Because RAID-1 provides both redundancy and performance improvements,
> its most practical application is use on critical "system" partitions
> such as /, /usr, /var, swap, etc., where read operations are more
> frequent than write operations. 

Actually...  if read's are much more frequent than writes, then you 
may want RAID-5 instead.   

> For other file systems, such as /home or
> /var/{application}, other RAID levels might be considered (see the
> references above). If one were simply creating a generic RAID-1 volume
> for a non-root file system, the cookie-cutter examples from the man page
> could be followed, but because the root volume must be bootable, certain
> special steps must be taken during initial setup."
> 
> 
> > 
> > 
> > > Note that wd9 is a non-existing disk. 
> > 
> > If this document is expected to be used for NetBSD 2.0+, then you
> > might want to talk about the special disk name: "absent"
> > Rather than saying "wd9", you can just use "absent" instead.
> > 
> > See "Initialization and Configuration" in 'man raidctl' on a 2.0_BETA
> > box.
> 
> That's pretty cheeky! 

I was too lazy to repeat what the man-page said :)

> <tip> worthy due to the Dependency on NetBSD 2.0+
> 
> When the time comes, in the future, I'll re-run through the process with
> that and capture command output as such.
> 
> "Tip
> On systems running NetBSD 2.0+, you may substitute a "bogus" component
> such as /dev/wd9a for a special disk name "absent""

"On systems running NetBSD 2.0+, you may substitute the special disk 
name "absent" for a "bogus" component such as /dev/wd9a."

> > Looks good!! :)
> 
> Good; I'm glad you approve so far.  

Yes.  'man raidctl' is supposed to be sufficient to get people going 
with RAIDframe, but it doesn't hurt at all to have extra documentation.

> I had to re-write all of this with
> the advent of RAIDFrame in the install kernels, and eventually
> integration into sysinst looming overhead, eventually.
> 
> Better late than never.  Plus there's plenty of room for improvement on
> a document that is structured for such improvements.
> 
> A RAID-5 example and a FAQ section would probably be nice.

The FAQ section on my web-page has pretty much stagated...  I'm not 
sure what would go into a FAQ these days -- I can't think of any 
question that gets asked a zillion times.. 

Later...

Greg Oster