Greetings.  We've got an Opteron-based system running SL 5.1.  The
system has an areca RAID controller that we're using in JBOD mode.

This isn't a question about RAID, but as background information the
system is set up to have four software-RAID devices, mounted as follows:

    /dev/md1                /
    /dev/md0                /boot
    /dev/md2                /home
    /dev/md3                /backup

md0 and md1 are made up from partitions on two drives connected directly
to the motherboard.  md2 an md3 are both formed from drives connected to
the RAID controller.

Everything seems to work fine, except that the system "forgets" the
device md2 after a reboot.  I.e., /dev/md2 is simply not in whatever the
system uses as a database for devices.  

Note that the system for some reason "remembers" md3, and that md2 and
md3 are connected to the same controller.

The workaround that we've used is to remove the reference to /dev/md2
from /etc/fstab and then after rebooting:

    a. force the creation of the device md2:
               cd /dev
               ./MAKEDEV -xv /dev/md2

    b. assemble the RAID array:
               mdadm /dev/md2 --assemble --scan

    c. mount /dev/md2 "by hand"

This is straightforward enough, and it could easily be automated, but
there must be some way to make /dev/md2 permanent.  I don't recall that
we had to do anything special for /dev/md3 (again, coming from the same
controller).

Please let me know if you have some way to fix this.

Thanks.

					- Mike
-- 
Michael Hannon            mailto:[log in to unmask]
Dept. of Physics          530.752.4966
University of California  530.752.4717 FAX
Davis, CA 95616-8677