I have a root partition on a RAID 1 setup, and I would like to
boot from it.  I've flagged it as root using "raidctl -A root raid0"
but my attempt to install boot blocks onto that RAID doesn't seem
to yield a bootable device.

The RAID 1 consists of sd0a and sd3a arranged as a RAID 1 on device
raid0.  I installed boot blocks using:

	installboot -v /dev/rraid0c /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffs

However, when I try to boot from one of the disks in the RAID via
SRM I get "stack frame not valid" (or similar) for booting off sd0,
and a "can't load osf1_boot" for booting off sd3.  As this machine
used to have Tru64 on it, it seems to me that no boot blocks were
actually written, and it's attempting to boot off what was already
on there (i.e., the old Tru64 boot blocks in one case).

So, I'm guessing that when installing boot blocks onto bootable RAIDs,
you have to install them onto each underlying drive of the RAID
individually.

Can someone confirm that this is in fact the case, and that it won't
damage the RAID component labels by doing so?  (I believe the component
labels reserve space for disklabels, so it should be okay, but I
thought I'd best confirm.)

Finally, is there any way of specifying the dump device at boot other
than interactively, or do you always have to do it by wiring it into
the kernel config file using "config netbsd root on ? type ? dumps on
?" line?  (Right now, during boot, the system defaults to dumps on
raid0b, and there isn't a raid0b partition.)  And, if you have to
hard-wire, what is the appropriate way to specify this is a RAID 1
device, as my swap partition on raid1b is RAID 1, too.  Are dumps to
RAID 1 actually supported?  I specified my RAID 1 swap as a dump
device, too (using "swapctl -D"), and I noticed this at a recent
panic:

  dumping to dev 16,9 offset 262015
  dump device bad


(dev 16,9 is /dev/raid1b, which is my RAID 1 swap device.)

Cheers,

Paul.

e-mail: paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
 deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
        --- Frank Vincent Zappa