37 lines
1.5 KiB
Groff
37 lines
1.5 KiB
Groff
Subject: ANNOUNCE: mdadm 3.3.4 - A tool for managing md Soft RAID under Linux
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I am somewhat disappointed to have to announce the availability of
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mdadm version 3.3.4
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It is available at the usual places:
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http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/raid/mdadm/
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and via git at
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git://github.com/neilbrown/mdadm
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git://neil.brown.name/mdadm
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http://git.neil.brown.name/git/mdadm.git
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In mdadm-3.3 a change was made to how IMSM (Intel Matrix Storage
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Manager) metadata was handled. Previously an IMSM array would only
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be assembled if it was attached to an IMSM controller.
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In 3.3 this was relaxed as there are circumstances where the
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controller is not properly detected. Unfortunately this has negative
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consequences which have only just come to light.
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If you have an IMSM RAID1 configured and then disable RAID in the
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BIOS, the metadata will remain on the devices. If you then install
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some other OS on one device and then install Linux on the other, Linux
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might eventually start noticing the IMSM metadata (depending a bit on whether
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mdadm is included in the initramfs) and might start up the RAID1. This could
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copy one device over the other, thus trashing one of the installations.
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Not good.
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So with this release IMSM arrays will only be assembled if attached to
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an IMSM controller, or if "--force" is given to --assemble, or if the
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environment variable IMSM_NO_PLATFORM is set (used primarily for
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testing).
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I strongly recommend upgrading to 3.3.4 if you are using 3.3 or later.
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NeilBrown 3rd August 2015.
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