Help: Install Centos 7 Raid 1 with UEFI boot

[TrevorH]

Only Pxxx model HP RAID controllers are real hardware RAID cards. Those come preinstalled in models that have numbers like dl360p-genX and not preinstalled in dl360e-genX servers. The 'e' model servers ship with Bxxx model RAID cards which are FakeRAID.

[jabuzzard]

My preferred solution for boot when doing software RAID is to stick a small (that is physically small, Cruzier Fit are ideal) USB drive on the motherboard, and make that the boot device. When they are not being handled on a daily basis a decent make is incredibly reliable in my experience. In addition they are hardly used, basically only at boot time for reading and during a kernel update for writing. For added "security" you can rsync it onto the main RAID array, so if it does go wrong, replace drive, boot from rescue CD, copy back over, reinstall GRUB and off you go. For added goodness you are likely to notice it going wrong when you do a kernel upgrade and the write fails. At which point downtime was just around the corner anyway.

As an added benefit it makes the software RAID configuration much simpler. No messing about with multiple partitions on the devices, a single whole disk partition will do, or if you want just use them raw. Best of all RAID 5/6 etc. becomes much much simpler. I have had lots sitting in machines doing /boot duties for many years with not a single failure.

Here is what it looks like on a software RAID5. The flash disk on this machine is due for replacement this weekend, but only because at 256MB it is too small for CentOS 7 these days, so a 8GB SanDisk Cruizer Fir is waiting to go in. It has been in the machine seven years now, though it's something of a Ship of Theseus machine, as replacing the flash drive makes the oldest component besides the case just over two years old.

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[jab@dizzy ~]$ more /proc/mdstat 
Personalities : [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] 
md0 : active raid5 sdc[1] sdd[2] sdb[0]
      7813774976 blocks super 1.2 level 5, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [3/3] [UUU]
      bitmap: 1/30 pages [4KB], 65536KB chunk

unused devices: <none>
[jab@dizzy ~]$ lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINT
sda           8:0    1 247.5M  0 disk  
└─sda1        8:1    1 246.5M  0 part  /boot
sdb           8:16   0   3.7T  0 disk  
└─md0         9:0    0   7.3T  0 raid5 
  ├─vg-swap 253:0    0     8G  0 lvm   [SWAP]
  ├─vg-root 253:1    0    16G  0 lvm   /
  ├─vg-var  253:2    0    32G  0 lvm   /var
  └─vg-home 253:3    0   5.6T  0 lvm   /home
sdc           8:32   0   3.7T  0 disk  
└─md0         9:0    0   7.3T  0 raid5 
  ├─vg-swap 253:0    0     8G  0 lvm   [SWAP]
  ├─vg-root 253:1    0    16G  0 lvm   /
  ├─vg-var  253:2    0    32G  0 lvm   /var
  └─vg-home 253:3    0   5.6T  0 lvm   /home
sdd           8:48   0   3.7T  0 disk  
└─md0         9:0    0   7.3T  0 raid5 
  ├─vg-swap 253:0    0     8G  0 lvm   [SWAP]
  ├─vg-root 253:1    0    16G  0 lvm   /
  ├─vg-var  253:2    0    32G  0 lvm   /var
  └─vg-home 253:3    0   5.6T  0 lvm   /home
sr0          11:0    1  1024M  0 rom   
[jab@dizzy ~]$ lsscsi
[0:0:0:0]    disk    Sony     Storage Media    0100  /dev/sda 
[1:0:0:0]    cd/dvd  PIONEER  DVD-RW  DVR-112D 1.21  /dev/sr0 
[3:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      ST4000VN0001-1SF AN02  /dev/sdb 
[4:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      WDC WD4000F9YZ-0 1A02  /dev/sdc 
[5:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      HGST HUS724040AL AA70  /dev/sdd 
[jab@dizzy ~]$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 054c:02a5 Sony Corp. MicroVault Flash Drive
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 2304:0237 Pinnacle Systems, Inc. PCTV 73e [DiBcom DiB7000PC]
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

[edoherrera]

Hi
you have create a partition /boot/efi
http://brainscraps.wikia.com/wiki/CentO ... ware_RAID1
Regards

[CptUsagi]

Are you using HP's HPE Dynamic Smart Array using a raid controller named Bxxxi ?

Like TrevorH said the RAID created are fake hardware RAID and the Bxxxi controllers are not compatible with CentOS, RHEL, Oracle Linux, etc.

https://access.redhat.com/articles/118133

I would suggest you try to create your RAID another way or change the RAID controller.