Bug#434934: mdadm: should not fail with no arrays or with superblockless arrays

[Marc Lehmann]

Package: mdadm
Version: 2.6.2-1
Severity: normal


I have a number of systems with superblockless arrays, or systems with no
pesistent arrays at all, and its very hard to use the debian mdadm package
(while its very easy to use mdadm itself), as the dbeian package fails
when it should not:

   Assembling MD arrays...failed (no arrays found in config file or
   automatically).

nothing failed here in fact: all configured arrays could be assembled
properly, so this is just a spurious and misleading message.

especially on systems that have superblockless arrays: these can be
configured with mdadm, but i have not found a way to configure these with
mdadm.conf.

It also tries to get itself into every initrd and gives scary messages:

   W: mdadm: falling back to emergency procedure in initramfs.

I have no idea what the emergency procedure is (this should be explained
more clearly), but there is no emergency, so it shouldn't follow any
emergency procedure. In fact, it might be unheatlhy to follow it on
superblockless arrays, leading again to failures during the boot when, in
fact, everything is just fine.

In short, it would be nice if mdadm *respected* the config file that it
is so insistent for users to look at. Or put another way, either respect
the config file, or don't force the user throught he tedious process of
creating one when the package that ignroes it.

I don't care wether mdadm.conf supports superblockless arrays or not -
these are rare and will die out eventually, btw. The problem is that they
still need the mdadm *program*, newer versions of which come with a host
of very annoying baggage that forces all sorts of things that aren't
really useful, such as this unexplained emergency procedure or those extra
"failures" that aren't failures).

Another option would be tomove those scripts into mdadm-scripts or
something like that, so that debian offers a mdadm package that, well,
gives you mdadm and not some debian-only-enforced config file that doesn't
even offer mdadm's level of functionality.

Thanks a lot :->


-- Package-specific info:
--- mount output
/dev/sdc2 on / type reiserfs (rw,nodiratime)
/dev/mapper/vg_cerebro-localvol on /localvol type reiserfs (rw,nodiratime,data=writeback)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,size=128M,mode=1777)
none on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
automount(pid1718) on /fs type autofs (rw,fd=4,pgrp=1718,minproto=2,maxproto=4)
automount(pid1720) on /debian32/fs type autofs (rw,fd=4,pgrp=1720,minproto=2,maxproto=4)
/dev/loop6 on /wd type reiserfs (rw,noatime,data=writeback)
/dev/loop5 on /temp type xfs (rw,noatime,biosize=24,nobarrier)
/dev/sde on /usb0 type vfat (rw,noexec,nodev,sync,noatime,gid=25,dmask=0007,fmask=0117)

--- mdadm.conf
#DEVICE partitions
MAILADDR root

--- /proc/mdstat:
Personalities : 
unused devices: <none>

--- /proc/partitions:
major minor  #blocks  name

   8     0  732389376 sda
   8     1  732389312 sda1
   8    16 1953083392 sdb
   8    17 1953083168 sdb1
   8    32  195360984 sdc
   8    33    1920000 sdc1
   8    34  192928983 sdc2
   8    35      64000 sdc3
   8    36      64000 sdc4
   8    48  156290904 sdd
   8    49   25599546 sdd1
   8    50    9775552 sdd2
   8    51  120913222 sdd3
 253     0  524288000 dm-0
 253     1 1428791296 dm-1
 253     2  732385280 dm-2
   7     5  732385280 loop5
   7     6 1428791296 loop6
   7     7      64000 loop7
   8    64      62188 sde

--- initrd.img-2.6.20.1:

--- /proc/modules:

--- /var/log/syslog:

--- volume detail:

--- /proc/cmdline
auto BOOT_IMAGE=Linux ro root=822 usbhid.mousepoll=1

--- lilo:


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.20.1
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages mdadm depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]         1.5.11     Debian configuration management sy
hi  libc6                         2.6-2      GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  lsb-base                      3.1-23     Linux Standard Base 3.1 init scrip
ii  makedev                       2.3.1-83   creates device files in /dev

Versions of packages mdadm recommends:
ii  exim4-daemon-light [mail-tran 4.67-1     lightweight exim MTA (v4) daemon
ii  module-init-tools             3.3-pre4-2 tools for managing Linux kernel mo

-- debconf information:
* mdadm/warning:
  mdadm/initrdstart_msg_errconf:
  mdadm/initrdstart_msg_errblock:
* mdadm/autocheck: true
* mdadm/autostart: true
  mdadm/initrdstart_msg_errexist:
* mdadm/start_daemon: true
* mdadm/initrdstart: all
  mdadm/initrdstart_notinconf: false
  mdadm/initrdstart_msg_errmd:
  mdadm/initrdstart_msg_intro:
* mdadm/mail_to: root