Bug#508123: mdadm: checkarray could check less vigorously

[Andrew Pollock]

Package: mdadm
Version: 2.5.6-9
Severity: wishlist

Hi,

The montly checkarray job is great, but let's say I've got

dev.raid.speed_limit_min = 200000
dev.raid.speed_limit_max = 200000

in my /etc/sysctl.conf because I want a rebuild to complete as quickly
as possible. This also causes the self-check to really flog the tripe
out of the array, which significantly degrades its performance.

My wish is to be able to specify an alternative consistency-check
speed_limit_min and max in say /etc/default/mdadm, and have checkarray
temporarily adjust /proc/sys/dev/speed_limit_(min|max) appropriately for
the duration of the self-check, and then return it to its previous
value. I'd prefer to have the self-check take longer to complete, and
not interfere with the array's performance, than have it complete
quickly.

regards

Andrew

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-6-686
Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages mdadm depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]  1.5.11etch2       Debian configuration management sy
ii  libc6                  2.3.6.ds1-13etch7 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  lsb-base               3.1-23.2etch1     Linux Standard Base 3.1 init scrip
ii  makedev                2.3.1-83          creates device files in /dev

Versions of packages mdadm recommends:
ii  module-init-tools             3.3-pre4-2 tools for managing Linux kernel mo
ii  sendmail-bin [mail-transport- 8.13.8-3   powerful, efficient, and scalable 

-- debconf information excluded