Accepted mdadm 2.6.2-1ubuntu1 (source)

[Marius Gedminas]

On Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 03:15:37PM +0200, Reinhard Tartler wrote:
> Scott James Remnant <scott at ubuntu.com> writes:
> 
> >> Reported as https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mdadm/+bug/125471
> >> 
> > This is not a regression though, right?  We found nothing that made an
> > attempt to force a degraded array to be used at boot.
> 
> No, I'd expect it to be triaged as wishlist bug for enhancment of the
> package. I can imagine that espc. the ubuntu server people would be
> interested in solving it.
> 
> > What suggestion would you make for it?
> 
> Basically the solution you suggested: Detect root on a degraded array,
> and drop to busybox with a short explanation how to boot in degraded
> mode.

Is there no better solution?  I've a server sitting in a data center
1000 km from here; I'd rather get an email about a degraded RAID array
on / and schedule a replacement at a convenient time than have to call
the local technicians and walk them through the busybox shell over the
phone.

> > Note that removing --no-degraded doesn't work, since that's required to
> > actually assemble the array.  Without it, it would be always assembled
> > degraded since block devices don't turn up at once.  We'd need to
> > examine the array status to see whether all components have been
> > detected, and some marked as discarded.
> 
> Okay, so the detection would have to use some timeout value for
> assembling the raid after finding/detecting the first drive.
> 
> > This won't work if a drive is removed; we can't tell the difference
> > between that and a drive just hasn't been inserted or detected yet.
> 
> It seems to me that this should be configurable then. The default could
> be to abort booting if the array is not complete with instructions how
> to boot in degraded mode, and add documentation to the ubuntu-server
> guide how to make the server boot without interaction in degraded mode
> if a disk is missing. 

If both are possible, what are the downsides of having it come up in
degraded mode by default?

> The local admin would want to be notified (by email or other means)
> about this incident, then.

Definitely.  A mail to root@ (for servers) and a notification bubble on
login (for desktops).

Marius Gedminas
-- 
Computers are not intelligent.  They only think they are.
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