RHCE - Part 1

Block Device Support

• Supported Controllers
  • Standard (floppy, IDE, SCSI)
    • IDE: Built-in
    • SCSI: proper module has alias "scsi_hostadapor" in /etc/modules.conf
    • If RAID detected, there's initial ramdisk image: /boot/initrd-versionnum.img
    • See /proc/ide/ and /proc/scsi/
  • Hardware RAID (MegaRaid, ServerRAID, Vortex, DAC960, NCR 5380, Compaq Smart2...)
• /sbin/hdparm
  • Adjust ow-lever drive parameters
  • Perform benchmarks
  • Example: enable DMA access, 32-bit addressing...
  • See /etc/sysconfig/harddisks
  • See my website:
    http://www.ibiblio.org/sinner/linux/linux_04en.html
• Virtual Block Devices
  • Loopback devices
    Configured with /sbin/losetup or
    mounting with mount -o loop imagefile.img /mnt/disk
  • Software RAID metadisks /dev/md[0-31] (seen later)