Red Hat Raw Device Administration

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is fully equipped with the tools to set up raw devices and administer them during a system start-up. Set up a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system to administer partitions using the /etc/sysconfig/rawdevices file.

This is a plain text file that contains comments and examples for possible configurations:

# raw device bindings
# format: rawdev major minor
#         rawdev blockdev
# example: /dev/raw/raw1 /dev/sda1
#          /dev/raw/raw2 8 5
/dev/raw/raw1 /dev/sdd1
/dev/raw/raw2 /dev/sdd2
/dev/raw/raw3 /dev/sdd3
/dev/raw/raw4 /dev/sdd4

Once you have created the raw devices, bind them by starting them from /etc/rc.d/init.d/rawdevices.

[root@legolas init.d]# cd /etc/rc.d/init.d
[root@legolas init.d]# sh rawdevices start
Assigning devices:
/dev/raw/raw1  -->   /dev/sdd5
     /dev/raw/raw1:     bound to major 3, minor 5
/dev/raw/raw2  -->   /dev/sdd6
     /dev/raw/raw2:     bound to major 3, minor 6
/dev/raw/raw3  -->   /dev/sdd7
     /dev/raw/raw3:     bound to major 3, minor 7
/dev/raw/raw4  -->   /dev/sdd8
     /dev/raw/raw4:     bound to major 3, minor 8
done

To guarantee that the raw device binding occurs during any restart, use:

# /sbin/chkconfig rawdevices on