SOFTRAID(4) | Device Drivers Manual | SOFTRAID(4)

# NAME

`softraid` — software RAID

# SYNOPSIS

`softraid0 at root`

# DESCRIPTION

The `softraid` device emulates a Host Bus Adapter (HBA) that provides RAID and other I/O related services. The `softraid` device provides a scaffold to implement more complex I/O transformation disciplines. For example, one can tie chunks together into a mirroring discipline. There really is no limit on what type of discipline one can write as long as it fits the SCSI model.

`softraid` supports a number of disciplines. A discipline is a collection of functions that provides specific I/O functionality. This includes I/O path, bring-up, failure recovery, and statistical information gathering. Essentially a discipline is a lower level driver that provides the I/O transformation for the softraid device.

A volume is a virtual disk device that is made up of a collection of chunks.

A chunk is a partition or storage area of fstype “RAID”. disklabel(8) is used to alter the fstype.

Currently `softraid` supports the following disciplines:

RAID 0
  A striping discipline. It segments data over a number of chunks to increase performance. RAID 0 does not provide for data loss (redundancy).
RAID 1
  A mirroring discipline. It copies data across more than one chunk to provide for data loss. Read performance is increased, though at the cost of write speed. Unlike traditional RAID 1, `softraid` supports the use of more than two chunks in a RAID 1 setup.
RAID 5
  A striping discipline with floating parity across all chunks. It stripes data across chunks and provides parity to prevent data loss of a single chunk failure. Read performance is increased; write performance does incur additional overhead.
CRYPTO
  An encrypting discipline. It encrypts data on a single chunk to provide for data confidentiality. CRYPTO does not provide redundancy.
CONCAT
  A concatenating discipline. It writes data to each chunk in sequence to provide increased capacity. CONCAT does not provide redundancy.
RAID 1C
  A mirroring and encrypting discipline. It encrypts data to provide for data confidentiality and copies the encrypted data across more than one chunk to prevent data loss in case of a chunk failure. Unlike traditional RAID 1, `softraid` supports the use of more than two chunks in a RAID 1C setup.

installboot(8) may be used to install boot(8) in the boot storage area of the `softraid` volume. All chunks in the volume will then be bootable. Boot support is currently limited to the CRYPTO, RAID 1, and RAID 1C disciplines on the amd64, arm64, riscv64 and sparc64 platforms. Boot support on i386 is limited to CRYPTO and RAID 1. On sparc64, bootable chunks must be RAID partitions using the letter ‘a’. At the boot(8) prompt, softraid volumes have names beginning with ‘sr’ and can be booted from like a normal disk device. CRYPTO and 1C volumes will require a decryption passphrase or keydisk at boot time.

The status of `softraid` volumes is reported via sysctl(8) such that it can be monitored by sensorsd(8). Each volume has one fourth level node named hw.sensors.softraid0.driveN, where N is a small integer indexing the volume. The format of the volume status is:

value (device), status

The device identifies the `softraid` volume. The following combinations of value and status can occur:

online, OK
  The volume is operating normally.
degraded, WARNING
  The volume as a whole is operational, but not all of its chunks are. In many cases, using bioctl(8) `-R` to rebuild the failed chunk is advisable.
rebuilding, WARNING
  A rebuild operation was recently started and has not yet completed.
failed, CRITICAL
  The device is currently unable to process I/O.
unknown, UNKNOWN
  The status is unknown to the system.

# EXAMPLES

An example to create a 3 chunk RAID 1 from scratch is as follows:

Initialize the partition tables of all disks:

    # fdisk -iy wd1
    # fdisk -iy wd2
    # fdisk -iy wd3

Now create RAID partitions on all disks:

    # echo 'RAID *' | disklabel -wAT- wd1
    # echo 'RAID *' | disklabel -wAT- wd2
    # echo 'RAID *' | disklabel -wAT- wd3

Assemble the RAID volume:

    # bioctl -c 1 -l /dev/wd1a,/dev/wd2a,/dev/wd3a softraid0

The console will show what device was added to the system:

    scsibus0 at softraid0: 1 targets
    sd0 at scsibus0 targ 0 lun 0: <OPENBSD, SR RAID 1, 001> SCSI2
    sd0: 1MB, 0 cyl, 255 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sec, 3714 sec total

It is good practice to wipe the front of the disk before using it:

    # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd0c bs=1m count=1

Initialize the partition table and create a filesystem on the new RAID volume:

    # fdisk -iy sd0
    # echo '/ *' | disklabel -wAT- sd0
    # newfs /dev/rsd0a

The RAID volume is now ready to be used as a normal disk device. See bioctl(8) for more information on configuration of RAID sets.

Install boot(8) on the RAID volume, writing boot loaders to all 3 chunks:

    # installboot sd0

At the boot(8) prompt, load the /bsd kernel from the RAID volume:

    boot> boot sr0a:/bsd

# SEE ALSO

bio(4), bioctl(8), boot(8), boot_sparc64(8), disklabel(8), fdisk(8), installboot(8), newfs(8)

# HISTORY

The `softraid` driver first appeared in OpenBSD 4.2.

# AUTHORS

Marco Peereboom.

# CAVEATS

The driver relies on underlying hardware to properly fail chunks.

The RAID 1 discipline does not initialize the mirror upon creation. This is by design because all sectors that are read are written first. There is no point in wasting a lot of time syncing random data.

The RAID 5 discipline does not initialize parity upon creation, instead parity is only updated upon write.

Stacking disciplines (CRYPTO on top of RAID 5, for example) is not supported at this time.

Currently there is no automated mechanism to recover from failed disks.

Certain RAID levels can protect against some data loss due to component failure. RAID is not a substitute for good backup practices.

April 13, 2025 | Debian