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1 | Subject: ANNOUNCE: mdadm 2.5 - A tool for managing Soft RAID under Linux |
2 | ||
3 | I am pleased to announce the availability of | |
4 | mdadm version 2.5 | |
5 | ||
6 | It is available at the usual places: | |
7 | http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~neilb/source/mdadm/ | |
8 | and | |
9 | http://www.{countrycode}.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/raid/mdadm/ | |
10 | ||
11 | mdadm is a tool for creating, managing and monitoring | |
12 | device arrays using the "md" driver in Linux, also | |
13 | known as Software RAID arrays. | |
14 | ||
15 | Release 2.5 adds a host of minor updates and one major update. | |
16 | ||
17 | The major update involves an "Auto Assemble" function which will, | |
18 | with certainly limits, scan all available devices for anything that | |
19 | looks like an md array, and will try to assemble it. | |
20 | This code should be treated with some caution as it is very new, | |
21 | and could be revised in future, though hopefully not very much. | |
22 | ||
23 | The main problem I have always had will auto-assembly is that it | |
24 | is too easy for it to assemble thing that you don't want assembled, | |
25 | e.g. if you have moved some devices from a different computer. | |
26 | To remove this problem, arrays can now be tagged for the computer | |
27 | that is their home (homehost) and only arrays with the correct | |
28 | homehost will be auto-assembled. | |
29 | ||
30 | Feedback on the effectiveness and usefulness of this feature and it's | |
31 | documentation is encouraged. | |
32 | ||
33 | Changelog Entries: | |
34 | - Support 'mailfrom' line in mdadm.conf so the From: line in alert | |
35 | emails can be explicitly set. | |
36 | - Arrange that SparesMissing (which is similar in import to | |
37 | DegradedArray) generates an Email. | |
38 | - Assume "DEVICE partitions" if no DEVICE line is given. | |
39 | - Support new 'offset' layout for raid10. | |
40 | - When creating a bitmap file, choose a chunksize to limit number | |
41 | of bitmap chunks to 2 million. More than this can cause kmalloc | |
42 | failure. | |
43 | - New 'CREATE' line in mdadm.conf for defaults such as owner, group, | |
44 | mode and auto-flag | |
45 | - --detail checks if array has been started or not and includes that | |
46 | in report. | |
47 | - When using --update=uuid on an array with a bitmap, update the | |
48 | bitmap's uuid too. | |
49 | - Add a copy of /proc/mdstat to the mail message sent by mdadm | |
50 | --monitor. | |
51 | - New flag --no-degraded to avoid starting arrays if there are | |
52 | fewer devices available than last time the array was started. | |
53 | This is only needed with --scan, as with --scan, that behaviour | |
54 | is the default. | |
55 | - Support for 'homehost' concept. This is a fairly major update. | |
56 | It includes a configfile option and a command line option for | |
57 | specifying a homehost, records that host in the superblock, | |
58 | and reports the homehost where possible. | |
59 | - Support for Auto Assembly. "mdadm -As" will, if provided with | |
60 | the name of a homehost, try to assemble all arrays it can find | |
61 | that were created for that homehost. See man pages for more details. | |
62 | ||
63 | Development of mdadm is sponsored by | |
64 | SUSE Labs, Novell Inc. | |
65 | ||
66 | NeilBrown 26th May 2006 | |
67 |