Bug#350861: [Yaird-devel] Bug#350861: yaird: Degraded RAID 1 array fails to boot

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 23:13:55 -0700
Shaun Jackman <sjackman at gmail.com> wrote:

> If yaird is run while the root partition, a RAID 1 array, is in a
> degraded state, the system will not boot if the array is ever restored
> to a complete state.
> 
> I installed a new kernel (linux-image-2.6.15-1-k7). I did not notice
> at the time that /dev/md0, a RAID 1 array and my root partition, was
> degraded; 1 of 2 disks were online. When yaird was run in the kernel
> postinst, it generated an initrd that added only the one online disk
> to the array. Some time later I noticed that the array was degraded
> and add added the missing disk back to the array. Now 2 of 2 disk are
> online. I rebooted the system, but the initrd only tried to add the
> one disk to the array, and mdadm refused to start the array, since it
> had only 1 disk, and apparently it really wanted 2. It pointed out
> that one may pass the --run option to force it to start, but of course
> I had no console or shell with which to pass this option.
> 
> So, it'd be better if the initrd built by yaird included *all* the
> disks for the array, including failed disks. Perhaps it could check
> this information against /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf if it exists. Second,
> it'd be much better if the initrd would start the array even with a
> failed disk, which suggests passing the --run option to mdadm. This
> latter point probably requires some discussion first.

I believe including broken disks will then fail to boot the degraded
system (if not including --run). See bug#350710.

Upstream dislikes including config files with the initrd. As I
understand it for the reason that the initrd should then probably be
rebuild whenever the original config file is changed.

Why do including --add require more discussion? What is the drawbacks?


See also bug#336514 for a related issue.


thanks for the help with this.

 - Jonas

-- 
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

 - Enden er nær: http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm
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