Bug#534470: Using mdadm 2.6.7.2 to assemble a raid array created with mdadm 1.9.0 will corrupt it making mdadm 1.9.0 to crash when trying to reassemble

[RUSSOTTO François-Xavier 200103]

I am not expecting that a lenny install cdrom will work without issue on a sarge system but, at least, I am expecting that such a cdrom will not corrupt the sarge system without prompting.

As I mentioned, when I booted the lenny cdrom, it did auto-remount the raid array of my sarge system (thus corrupting it) with NO PROMPT AT ALL.

So, what I expect is that: booting a debian install cdrom (any version) will not corrupt an existing system if no action is performed by user explicitly.

Off course, if I had managed to remount myself (manually) the sarge raid array using a lenny raid tool, I would not have complain (except on myself).

As I suggested to Neil: prior to auto-remount a raid array, the raid tool should perform a version checking so that, at least, user is warned that the raid array might be corrupt performing such operation.

Br


> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : Stephen Gran [mailto:sgran at debian.org]
> Envoyé : samedi 28 novembre 2009 19:16
> À : RUSSOTTO François-Xavier 200103; 534470 at bugs.debian.org
> Objet : Re: Bug#534470: Using mdadm 2.6.7.2 to assemble a raid array
> created with mdadm 1.9.0 will corrupt it making mdadm 1.9.0 to crash when
> trying to reassemble
> 
> severity 534470 important
> thanks
> 
> This one time, at band camp, RUSSOTTO François-Xavier 200103 said:
> > After booting a Debian 5.0.1 - Lenny install cdrom in rescue mode
> > (debian-501-ia64-netinst.iso) on an Itanium 2 server with Debian 3.1 -
> > Sarge (ia64) installed on a software raid 5 root partition, opening a
> > console in the root partition mounted from the raid array
> > (auto-assembled) corrupts the raid array, leading to a kernel panic at
> > server reboot, and preventing from manual reassembly using mdadm 1.9.0
> > (Sarge).
> 
> I suspect that the problem here is that the user is expecting a recovery
> tool released nearly 5 years after the OS he has installed to work
> without issues.
> 
> I'd suggest that if etch supports the new superblock checksum format,
> this bug can be closed, as we no longer actually support sarge (in a
> distribution sense - Martin, if you want to make it easier for sarge
> users, that's of course entirely fine).  I've downgraded the severity
> for now, as a bug that only affects sarge users does not affect the
> releasability of this software in squeeze.
> 
> Cheers,
> --
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> |   ,''`.                                            Stephen Gran |
> |  : :' :                                        sgran at debian.org |
> |  `. `'                        Debian user, admin, and developer |
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