[Bug 872220] Re: Fails to boot when there's problems with softraid

[Simon Bazley]

I submitted this in reference to 990913 but now think that relates to
the mdadm/udev  racing condition discussed in 917250.  My issue is that
a attached, degraded, devices which should not be required, are
preventing my setup from booting:-

I have a similar problem, but suspect the issue I'm having means it must
be either down to code in the kernel or options unique to my
ubuntu/kernel config, or something in my initramfs. /proc/version
reports: 3.2.0-30-generic.

In my case, I have 5 disks in my system, 4 are on a backplane, connected
directly to the motherboard, and the 5th is connected where the cd
should be.

These come up on linux as /dev/sd[a-d] on the motherboard and /dev/sde
on the 5th disk.

I have uinstalled the OS entirely on the 5th disk, and configured
grub/fstab to identify all partitions by UUID. fstab does not reference
any disks in /dev/sd[a-d].

The intention being, to install software raid on the a-d disk, to
present as /dev/md0

I created a RAID5 array with 3+spare, and one of the disks died. So I
have a legitimated degraded array, which the OS should not need to boot.

However it won't boot either with 'bootdegraded=true' or not

Not sure editing mdadm functions will help as really I don't want any md
functions to run at initramfs time. They can all wait until after it's
booted.

Any thoughts on how I can turn off mdadm completely from initramfs?

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Foundations Bugs, which is subscribed to mdadm in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/872220

Title:
  Fails to boot when there's problems with softraid

Status in “mdadm” package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  Ubuntu 11.10 has a new feature that it warns you while booting if
  there's a program with the softraid.

  It tells you that a hard disk in the softraid is missing, then asks,
  on the console:

  Continue to boot? y/N

  But it ignores all keypresses. After 5 seconds or so it then times
  out, falls to the default "N" option, and dumps you to a emergency
  bash prompt, with no indication on how to proceed.

  The feature is a good idea, but not in the current broken state.

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mdadm/+bug/872220/+subscriptions