Bug#585015: kernel 2.6.34 fails to boot normally with mdadm > 3.1.1-1

[Neil Brown]

On Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:30:17 +0200
Jean-Luc Coulon <jean-luc.coulon at wanadoo.fr> wrote:

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> Le 22/07/2010 09:04, Neil Brown a écrit :
> > 
> 
> > 
> > I wonder if it could be
> >    commit b179246f4f519082158279b2f45e5fd51842cc42
> > causing this.
> > 
> > Can you report the contents of /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf ??
> 
> Please find it attached

Thanks.  Unfortunately it didn't help.

> 
> > 
> > Can you boot of a live CDROM and see if
> >   mdadm -As
> > 
> > works, or spins or does something else bad?
> 
> Well: the latest version of madm works on kernel version older the
> 2.6.34… and I've not found a live CD with ealier version (2.6.34 or
> 3.6.65.rc)…
> Should the version on the live CD of importance?

Yes, you would need a kernel which causes problems - scratch that idea.

> 
> BTW, I tried to left the system for a couple of years waiting something
> happens. Finally, I got an udev message: "no space left on device". The
> device was not indicated and I've no device (disk) short of room...

Sounds like udev creating lots of things in a ramdisk...

How helpful are you feeling???

It would be really great if you could use 'git bisect' to isolate which
change causes the problem.

Debian doesn't add any significant patches to mainline mdadm, so you could 

  git clone git://neil.brown.name/mdadm
  cd mdadm
Then

  git bisect start mdadm-3.1.2 mdadm-3.1.1

  make ; make install ; mkinitramfs ; reboot
  git bisect good  OR git bisect bad

and see where you end up.

There are only 104 commits, so it should only take 7 iterations.

Thanks,
NeilBrown