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1 Changes Prior to this release
2 - Fix problem with compiling with gcc-2 compilers
3 - Fix compile problem of post-incrmenting a variable in a macro arg.
4 - Stop map_dev from returning [0:0], as that breaks things.
5
6 Changes Prior to 2.5.1 release
7 - Various fixes for gcc warnings
8 - uclibc warnings
9 - Makefile improvements for static linking/intalling
10 - Makefile uninstall target
11 - Really fix return status of --examine
12 - Typos
13 - Byteorder stuff (again)
14 - Don't try to create devices with --manage or --grow
15 - allow default metadata (superblock) type to be specified
16 in mdadm.conf
17 - Get --stop to list devices stopped but honour --quiet
18 - remove libssl dependency
19 - Avoid some misdetection of overlapping partitions
20 - Fix memory leak in --monitor mode
21
22 Changes Prior to 2.5 release
23 - Support 'mailfrom' line in mdadm.conf so the From: line in alert
24 emails can be explicitly set.
25 - Arrange that SparesMissing (which is similar in import to
26 DegradedArray) generates an Email.
27 - Assume "DEVICE partitions" if no DEVICE line is given.
28 - Support new 'offset' layout for raid10.
29 - When creating a bitmap file, choose a chunksize to limit number
30 of bitmap chunks to 2 million. More than this can cause kmalloc
31 failure.
32 - New 'CREATE' line in mdadm.conf for defaults such as owner, group,
33 mode and auto-flag
34 - --detail checks if array has been started or not and includes that
35 in report.
36 - When using --update=uuid on an array with a bitmap, update the
37 bitmap's uuid too.
38 - Add a copy of /proc/mdstat to the mail message sent by mdadm
39 --monitor.
40 - New flag --no-degraded to avoid starting arrays if there are
41 fewer devices available than last time the array was started.
42 This is only needed with --scan, as with --scan, that behaviour
43 is the default.
44 - Support for 'homehost' concept. This is a fairly major update.
45 It includes a configfile option and a command line option for
46 specifying a homehost, records that host in the superblock,
47 and reports the homehost where possible.
48 - Support for Auto Assembly. "mdadm -As" will, if provided with
49 the name of a homehost, try to assemble all arrays it can find
50 that were created for that homehost. See man pages for more details.
51
52 Changes Prior to 2.4.1 release
53 - Honour --write-mostly when adding to an array without persistent
54 superblocks.
55 - Fix alignment problem in version-1 superblocks.
56 NOTE: This is an incompatable change affecting raid5 reshape.
57 If you want to reshape a raid5 using version-1 superblocks,
58 use 2.6.17-rc2 or later, and mdadm-2.4.1 or later.
59
60 Changes Prior to 2.4 release
61 - Rewrite 'reshape' support including performing a backup
62 of the critical region for a raid5 growth, and restoring that
63 backup after a crash.
64 - Put a 'canary' at each end of the backup so a corruption
65 can be more easily detected.
66 - Remove useless 'ident' arguement from ->getinfo_super method.
67 - Support --backup-file for backing-up critical section during
68 growth.
69 - Erase old superblocks (of different versions) when creating new
70 array.
71 - Allow --monitor to work with arrays with >28 devices
72 - Report reshape information in --detail
73 - Handle symlinks in /dev better
74 - Fix mess in --detail output which a device is missing.
75 - Manpage tidyup
76 - Support 'bitmap=' in mdadm.conf for auto-assembling arrays with
77 write-intent bitmaps in separate files.
78 - Updates to md.4 man page including section on RESTRIPING and SYSFS
79
80 Changes Prior to 2.3.1 release
81 - Fixed -O2 compile so I could make and RPM.
82 - Type cast number to be printed %llu so it compiles on 64bit
83 machines. (Thanks Luca).
84 - Stop using asm/byteorder.h - to make Redhat happy :-(
85 - Require bitmap files to have a '/' in their name.
86 - Error-check a few syscalls - code from SuSE package.
87
88 Changes Prior to 2.3 release
89 - Try /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf if /etc/mdadm.conf doesn't exist.
90 This provided compatability for Debian.
91 - Fixed for version-1 superblock:
92 report chunksize for raid6 and raid10
93 make sure device size used is a multiple of chunksize
94 - Fix "--assemble --scan" crash.
95 - Fix completely failure to create array on ppc64
96 - Fix memcmp in place of memcpy
97 - A few minor improvements to online help
98 - Clean up usage of 'long long' for used-size of devices, so
99 that it is possible to create a raid1 of 7TB devices!
100 - Make internal bitmaps work on 7TB raid1 arrays.
101 - Provide error message if --examine doesn't find any superblock.
102 - Report 'reshape' status in --examine - this depends on kernel
103 patches that are not yet finalised.
104 - Report bitmap status in --detail and --examine
105 - Default to v1 superblocks instead of v0.90 if the array
106 is too big for 0.90 to handle.
107 - Sort the output of "mdadm --detail --scan" so that it is
108 in a suitable order for assembling arrays. i.e. components come
109 before an array that they are part of.
110 - Print size of large reiserfs array properly went warning of
111 possible confilcts.
112
113 Changes Prior to 2.2 release
114 - Assorted bug fixes
115 - Support write-intent-bitmaps on raid10
116 - Support little-endian (Rather than hostendian) bitmaps.
117 - Return correct error code from 'mdadm -S'
118 - Remove extra blank line from 'mdadm -Eb' output.
119 - Improve option parsing so that -a and -b do not have
120 optional arguements: the arg is either required or not
121 depending on context.
122 - Allow scanning of devices listed in /proc/partitions even
123 if they don't appear in /dev.
124 - Support --assume-clean in --create mode as well as --build
125 - Add support for --monitor to report to syslog: -y or --syslog.
126 Thanks to Ross Vandegrift
127 - --monitor now reports which device failed in a 'Fail' message
128 This broke with 2.6
129 - Improve chance of array starting properly after a crash.
130 mdadm was insisting the event numbers were identical, but this
131 isn't needed, and is a problem if the crash was while the metadata
132 was being updated.
133 - Support --update==uuid
134 - Added README.initramfs and mkinitramfs to help people use an
135 initram for starting md arrays at boot.
136
137 Changes Prior to 2.1 release
138 - Fix assembling of raid10 array when devices are missing.
139 mdadm now correctly detects if a array is workable or not
140 depending on which devices are present, and so will correctly
141 handle "--assemble --force" if multiple devices have failed.
142 - Report raid10 layout in --examine output.
143 - Fix assembling of arrays that use the version-1 superblock and
144 have spares. Previously the spares would be ignored.
145 - Fix bug so that multiple drives can be re-added at once.
146 - Fix problem with hot-adding a bitmap to version-1-superblock
147 arrays.
148
149 Changes Prior to 2.0
150 - Support assembling from byte-swapped superblocks
151 metadata type "0.swap" and --update=byteorder
152 - write-mostly and write-behind support for raid1.
153 - Support --name= and 'name=' config entry for identifying
154 arrays be name.
155 - RAID10 in man pages.
156 - Lot of minor manpage updates
157
158 Changes Prior to 2.0-devel-3 release
159 - Assorted fixes for multiple bugs...
160 - Add test suite
161
162 Changes Prior to 1.12.0 release
163 Several of these are backported from the Debian package
164 - Don't use 'lstat' to check for blockdevices, use stat.
165 - Document --size=max option for --grow
166 - Document SparesMissing event and DeviceDisappeared/WrongLevel
167 - --stop --scan repeatly cycles until no more progress can be made
168 so that stack devices are stopped properly
169 - Minor type rationalisation for ident->uuid - now always 'int[]'
170 - Fix type in online help for --grow (was -F, now -G)
171 - Allow --auto command line option to set default auto=
172 value when running "--assemble --scan". Previously
173 --auto was ignored if --scan was given
174 - Fix a few type casts
175 - Fix parsing of /dev/md/N in is_standard
176 - Fix rounding errors in human_size()
177 - Fix silly example in mdadm.conf-examples
178 - When finding a /dev name for a device, prefer shorter names
179 - Suppress listing of devices= in --brief output of -D or -E,
180 unless -v is given (-vv gives the old behaviour with -Dsv).
181 This is because the device list can change and so is not a
182 stable aspect of the array
183 - Allow --force with --grow so '-Gfn1' works (on raid1)
184 - Replace sprintf calls with snprintf (to quiet diet-libc)
185 - Add man page for mdassemble
186 - Fix compilation with tinyc
187
188 Changes Prior to 1.11.0 release
189 - Fix embarassing bug which causes --add to always fail.
190
191 Changes Prior to 1.10.0 release
192 - Fix bug with --config=partitions
193 - Open sub-devices with O_EXCL to detect if already in use
194 - Make sure superblock updates are flushed directly to disk.
195
196 Changes Prior to 2.0-devel-1 release
197 - Support for version-1 superblock. See --metadata option.
198 - Support for bitmap based intent logging.
199 - Minor fixes.
200
201 Changes Prior to 1.9.0 release
202 - Fix rpm build problem (stray %)
203 - Minor manpage updates
204 - Change "dirty" status to "active" as it was confusing people.
205 - --assemble --auto recognises 'standard' name and insists on using
206 the appropriate major/minor number for them.
207 - Remove underscore from partition names, so partitions of
208 "foo" are "foo1", "foo2" etc (unchanged) and partitions of
209 "f00" are "f00p1", "f00p2" etc rather than "f00_p1"...
210 - Use "major", "minor", "makedev" macros instead of
211 "MAJOR", "MINOR", "MKDEV" so that large device numbers work
212 on 2.6 (providing you have glibc 2.3.3 or later).
213 - Add some missing closes of open file descriptors.
214 - Reread /proc/partition for every array assembled when using
215 it to find devices, rather than only once.
216 - Make "mdadm -Ss" stop stacked devices properly, by reversing the
217 order in which arrays are stopped.
218 - Improve some error messages.
219 - Allow device name to appear before first option, so e.g.
220 mdadm /dev/md0 -A /dev/sd[ab]
221 works.
222 - Assume '-Q' if just a device is given, rather than being silent.
223 - Change "dirty" status to "active" as it was confusing people.
224
225 Changes Prior to 1.8.0 release
226 - Makefile cleanup from Luca Berra <bluca@comedia.it>
227 - --pid-file (-i) to set a pid file to use with --monitor --daemonise
228 - Fix typo in mdadm man page
229 - Fix coredump when "-s" used with no config file present.
230 - Support new "faulty" personality which can inject synthetic
231 faults. (Not in kernel.org yet at 1Nov2004)
232 - Support raid0/linear on devices > 2 Terabytes
233 - Make sure raid6 resyncs when created with one missing device
234
235 Changes Prior to 1.7.0 release
236 - Support "--grow --add" to add a device to a linear array, if the
237 kernel supports it. Not documented yet.
238 - Restore support for uclibc which was broken recently.
239 - Several improvements to the output of --detail, including
240 reporting "resyncing" or "recovering" in the state.
241 - Close filedescriptor at end of --detail (exit would have closed it
242 anyway, so this isn't abig deal).
243 - Report "Sync checkpoint" in --examine output if appropriate.
244 - Add --update=resync for --assemble mode to for a resync when the
245 array is assembled.
246 - Add support for "raid10", which is under development in 2.6.
247 Not documented yet.
248 - --monitor now reads spare-group and spares info from config file
249 even when names of arrays to scan are given on the command line
250
251 Changes Prior to 1.6.0 release
252 - Device name given in -Eb is determined by examining /dev rather
253 than assuming /dev/md%d
254 - Fix bug in --monitor where an array could be held open an so
255 could not be stopped without killing mdadm.
256 - Add --grow mode. Currently only --size and --raid-disks can be
257 changed. Both require kernel support which, at the time of
258 writing, is not in a release kernel yet.
259 - Don't print out "errors" or "no-errors" in -D and -E, as the bit
260 is never set or used.
261 - Use md event notification in 2.6.??? to make --monitor mode
262 respond instantly to events.
263 - Add --auto= option and auto= configfile entry to tell mdadm to
264 create device files as needed. This is particularly useful
265 with partitioned arrays where the major device number can change.
266 - When generating --brief listing, if the standard name doesn't
267 exist, search /dev for one rather than using a temp name.
268 - Allow --build to build raid1 and multipath arrays.
269 - Add "--assume-clean" for Create and Build, particularly for raid1
270 Note: this is dangerous. Only use it if you are certain.
271 - Fix bug so that Rebuild status monitoring works again.
272 - Add "degraded" and "recovering" options to the "Status:"
273 entry for --detail
274
275 Changes Prior to 1.5.0 release
276 - new commands "mdassemble" which is a stripped-down equivalent of
277 "mdadm -As", that can be compiled with dietlibc.
278 Thanks to Luca Berra <bluca@comedia.it>.
279 It can be using in an initramfs or initrd.
280 - Fix compiling error with BLKGETSIZE64 and some signed/unsigned
281 comparison warnings.
282 - Add Rebuild Status (% complete) to --detail output.
283 - Support "--monitor --test" which will generate a test alert
284 for each array once, to test notification paths.
285 - Generate RebuildFinished event when rebuild finishes.
286 - Support for raid6 as found in 2.6.2 - thanks to
287 H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
288 - Support partitioned md arrays with a different major number and
289 naming scheme (md_dX in /proc/mdstat, /dev/md/dXpY in /dev).
290
291 Changes Prior to 1.4.0 release
292 - Document fact that creating a raid5 array really creates a
293 degraded array with a spare.
294 - Add "spares=" tag to config file and generate it wit --detail and
295 --examine
296 - Add "SparesMissing" event when --monitor first sees an array and
297 it doesn't have the enough spare devices.
298 - Add --update=summaries for --assemble to update summary
299 information in superblock, and correct other inconsistancies in
300 the superblock.
301 - Add --test option to --detail to set a meaningful exit status.
302
303 Changes Prior to 1.3.0 release
304 - Make 'size' and unsigned long in Create to allow creation of
305 larger arrays.
306 - Explicitly flag spare devices as 'spare' in --detail and --examine
307 output. Previously they simply had no flags lists.
308 - Make MailCmd (for monitor) configurable in Makefile, and default
309 to "/usr/sbin/sendmail -t". Also split out the warning related
310 flags into CWFLAGS for easier build configurability.
311 - Minor bugfix in Manage code.
312 - --monitor now notices and reports degraded arrays at startup using
313 "DegradedArray" event, and also has a --oneshot option to only
314 report DegradedArrays, and then exit.
315 - Small man-page clarification w.r.t. raid levels and raid4 in
316 particular.
317 - Disallow creation of arrays with only one device as this is
318 probably a mistake. --force will override this check.
319 - Correct some misleading documentation in the "mdadm --create --help"
320 message.
321 - Ignore chunksize if raid1 or multipath.
322 - Explicit statement in man page that raid-disks cannot be changed
323 after array is created.
324 - Improve message when attempting to start an array with
325 insufficient devices. Instead of required the array to be full,
326 we only require it has as many active devices as last time.
327
328 Changes Prior to 1.2.0 release
329 - Fix bug where --daemonise required an argument.
330 - In --assemble --verbose, print appropriate message if device is
331 not in devices= list
332 - Updated mdadm.conf.5 to reflect fact that device= takes wildcards
333 - Typos: componenet -> component
334 - Reduce size of "--help" message put excess into "--help-options"
335 - Fix bug introduced when MD_SB_DISKS dependancy removed, and which
336 caused spares not be assembled properly.
337 - Print appropriate message if --monitor --scan decides not to
338 monitor anything.
339 Changes Prior to 1.1.0 release
340 - add --deamonise flag for --monitor - forks and prints pid to stdout
341 - Fix bug so we REALLY clear dirty flag with -Af
342 - -Db now prints a 'devices=' word for each array.
343 - "mdadm -A /dev/md0" will get info from configfile, even without scan
344 - When assembling multipath arrays, ignore devices which are flagged
345 as having errors.
346 - take --super-minor=dev to mean "use the minor number of the mddev
347 being assembled.
348 - take --config=none to mean "completely ignore config file"
349 - Make --monitor require --scan or a device list.
350 Changes Prior to 1.0.9 release
351 - Documentation updates including kernel parameters documented
352 in md.4
353 - --assemble --force for raid4/5 will mark clean, needed for 2.5
354 - --detail prints out the events counter as well
355 - flush device before reading superblock to be sure to get
356 current data
357 - added mdadm.static target to makefile for static linking
358 - --monitor was ignoring /dev/md0 due to off-by-one error
359 - Fix assorted typos
360 - Fix printing of Gibibytes - calc was wrong.
361 - Fix printing of Array Size in --detail when very big.
362 - --monitor no longer tries to work for raid0 or linear as these
363 have nothing to be monitored.
364 - The word 'partitions' on a DEVICE line will cause all partitions
365 listed in /proc/partitions to be considered
366 - If the config file is called 'partitions' then it will be treated
367 as though it contained exactly 'device partitions' so e.g.
368 mdadm -Ebsc partitions
369 will find all raid partitions easily.
370 - successfully assemble multipath devices by ignoring raid_disk
371 value from superblock (it is always the same).
372 - --assemble not tied to MD_SB_DISKS limit quite so much
373 - Support compiling with tcc
374 - Support compiling with uclibc - just skip scan of /dev
375 - Add --update= option for Assemble mode. Either sparc2.2
376 or super-minor updates are possible. See mdadm.8
377
378 Changes Prior to 1.0.1 release
379 - Round off MB/GiB etc values instead of round down.
380 - Add --sparc2.2 option to examine to shift superblock around
381 and --sparc2.2update to rewrite the superblock
382 - Fix assorted typos in online help
383
384 Changes Prior to 1.0.0 release
385 - Allow --config with Misc mode (for --examine --scan)
386 - Add $(CXFLAGS) to end of CFLAGS in makefile
387 - When making an N disk raid5 array, the Nth drive
388 is moved to the end of the array as a spare rather than
389 being shifted up one place. This means that when the
390 kernel builds onto the last spare and inserts it,
391 the devices will be in the expected order.
392 - Man page improvements
393 Changes Prior to 0.8.2 release
394 - Correct spelling of persist[ae]nce/persist[ae]nt.
395 - Change "disk" to "device" in options and config file
396 - convert array size to "long long" *before* shift-left in -D and -Q
397
398 Changes Prior to 0.8.1 release
399 - Add "INSTALL" file.
400 - Fix some "i" variables that were not being set properly
401 - Initialise minsize and maxsize so that compilers don't complain.
402 - Tidy up Makefile and mdadm.spec installations
403 - Add "multipath" to documentation of valid levels
404
405 Changes Prior to 0.8 release
406 - Fix another bug in Assemble.c due to confusing 'i' with 'j'
407 - Minimal, untested, support for multipath
408 - re-write of argument parsing to have more coherent modes,
409 - add --query,-Q option
410 - Update mdadm.8 to reflect arg processing change and --query
411 - Change "long" to "unsigned long" for device sizes
412 - Handle "mailaddr" and "program" lines in config file for follow/scan mode.
413 - --follow --scan will exit if no program or mail found
414 - Add MAILADDR and PROGRAM to mdadm.conf-example
415 - Spell check man pages
416 - consistently use "component devices" instead of "subdevices"
417 - Make -Wall -Werror really work and fix lots of errors.
418 - --detail and --stop can have --scan which chooses devices from /proc/mdstat
419 - --monitor detects 20% changes in resync, failed spares,
420 disappearing arrays,
421 - --monitor --scan will automatically add any devices found in /proc/mdstat
422 - --monitor will move spares between arrays with same spare-group if necessary
423 - Documentation for Monitor Mode
424 - --query notes if the array containing the given device is active or not
425 - Finished md.4 man page.
426
427 Changes Prior to 0.7.2 release
428 - mdadm.spec updates and ifdef BLKGETSIZE64 from Luca Berra -- bluca@comedia.it
429 - more mdadm.spec updates from Gregory Leblanc <gleblanc@linuxweasel.com>
430 - make directory for mdadm.conf configurable in Makefile
431 - Finished mdadm.conf.5. Removed details of conf file from
432 mdadm.8 leaving a reference to mdadm.conf.5.
433 - Fix bug in Assemble.c, thanks to Junaid Rizvi <domdev@sat.net.pk>
434 - Get --assemble --force to make sure old major/minor numbers are
435 consistant, as md.c worries about this :-(
436
437
438 Changes Prior to 0.7.1 release
439 - update mdadm.spec
440 - use BLKGETSIZE64 if available for array size
441 - give human readable as GiB/MiB and GB and MB, with 2 decimal point precision
442 - Only warn about size variation for raid1/4/5.
443 - Started md.4 man page
444 - Started mdadm.conf.5 man page
445
446 Changes Prior to 0.7 release
447
448 - Fix makefile to install binary at /sbin and not /sbin/sbin
449 Also install man page.
450 - Add --zero-superblock based on --destroywithextremeprejudice
451 from Dale Stephenson <steph@snapserver.com>
452 - change name to mdadm. It is palandromic, and much nicer to pronouce.
453
454 Changes Prior to 0.6 release
455
456 - Remove the limit on the number of device names that can be
457 given on the command line.
458 - Fix bug in --assemble --force where it would only update a
459 single superblock.
460 - Fix bogus printing of big numbers not being block devices
461 when given names of devices that don't exist.
462 - When --assemble --force, consider superblocks with an event
463 count that is 1 behind as out-of-date. Normally they are
464 considered up-to-date (as the kernel assumes this too).
465 - When marking drives as not-failed in the superblock,
466 we also mark them as ACTIVE and SYNC.
467 - Don't start arrays for which not all drives are available unless:
468 --scan which implies that all drives were found automatically
469 --run which means the user knows what they want
470 --force which means that we are fixing something broken
471 - Make sure all device numbers passed as 3rd arg of ioctl
472 are passed as unsigned lock, so that it works on SPARC
473 - If HOT_ADD_DISK failes for -a, then only try ADD_NEW_DISK
474 if we cannot read from the array, i.e. if the array is
475 not started yet.
476 - man page update
477 - Taught Examine to handle --scan. It examines all devices listed
478 on DEVICE lines in the config file.
479 - Added --brief (-b) flag for Examine and Detail to print out
480 and mdctl.conf compatible description with uuid=, level=,
481 disks= and - for Examine - devices=
482 --examine --brief collects all devices the make the one array and
483 list them as one entry.
484 - Added level= and disks= options to ARRAY lines in config files
485 so --brief output could be used as-is.
486 - Make parity style ({left,right}-{,a}symmetric) consistantly use -,
487 never _.
488 - Add "Array Size" to --detail output
489 - Change "Size" to "Device Size" and exclude from Detail of arrays
490 that do not have a consistent device size.
491 - Add Human readable MiB or GiB value on size lines of Detail and Examine
492 - --assemble --scan doesn't complain about active drives
493 - require number of spares given in -x to be listed.
494 - Made --build actually work.
495 Changes Prior to 0.5 release
496
497 --assemble:
498 spare drives are handled properly.
499
500 --force can be used to recover from 2-drive failures on RAID5
501 If you belive that /dev/hda1 /dev/hdb1 /dev/hdc1 /dev/hdd1 should
502 make a raid5 array, but it has experienced multiple failures and
503 wont start, then
504
505 mdctl --assemble --force /dev/md0 /dev/hd[abcd]1
506
507 Should update the superblock on the newest failed drive and
508 restart the array in degraded mode. You should then remove the
509 remaining failed drive and re-add it (if you are happy that it
510 might work).
511
512 Ofcourse whenever you have a 2-drive failure, you have a risk
513 of corruption in data that hasn't be changed for a long time. So
514 this doesn't give you your array back all nice and happy, but it
515 does allow you to recover data that might not be corrupt.
516
517 More flexibility in identifying a RAID array in the mdctl.conf
518 e.g.
519 array /dev/md4 super-minor=4
520
521 assembles /dev/md4 from all devices found that have a raid
522 superblock that says the minor number of the array is 4.
523 If the blocks with the right minor number do not all have the
524 same UUID, an error is flags and no assembly happens.
525
526 array /dev/md3 devices=/dev/hd[abc]2
527
528 Assembles /dev/md3 drom /dev/hda2 /dev/hdb2 and/dev/hdc2. All
529 devices must exist and have raid superblock with the same uuid.
530
531 If two identity specifiers are used, only devices that match all
532 of them are considered, so
533
534 array /dev/md2 devices=/dev/hd?2 super-minor=2
535
536 will assemble /dev/md2 using all /dev/hd?2 devices which have a
537 raid superblock with minor number 2.
538
539 --create:
540 When listing devices for --create, the word "missing" can be
541 used to indicate that the respective slot does not have a
542 working drive currently. This is similar to the "failed-disk"
543 directive in mkraid/raidtab.
544 e.g.
545 mdctl --create --level=5 -raid-disks=4 --spare-disks=2
546 /dev/md0 /dev/sda /dev/sdb missing /dev/sdc /dev/sdd /dev/sde
547
548 will create a raid5 array with the third slot empty, and two
549 spares.
550
551 By default, raid5 arrays are created with the last slot empty
552 and drive listed for the last slot added as a spare. If a
553 "missing" slot is given, or if --force is given, then --create
554 does exactly what you ask and doesn't try to be clever.
555
556
557 --follow / --monitor:
558
559 This is a new mode. I couldn't stop my self from picking a name
560 starting with F (as current modes start A,B,C,D,E) but I
561 relented and provided an alternate name that is somewhat more
562 meaningful.
563
564 In this mode, mdctl does not exit, but runs continuously and
565 periodically polls all the md devices to see if they have had
566 any interested state change.
567 The changes that it currently notices are:
568 Fail - an active disc fails
569 FailSpare - a spare, that was presumably being build, fails
570 ActiveSpare - a spare becomes active, presumably after a rebuild.
571
572 Options:
573 --mail mailaddress - send Email on any Fail* event
574 --program program - run the program on any event.
575 Args are: eventname mddevice subdevice(if-known)
576 --delay seconds - change from the default 60second pause
577 between polls.
578
579 I plan to add functionality to this mode to allow sharing of
580 spare drives. If an array is marks "spare-group=fred", and it
581 has a failed drive and no spares, and if some other array is
582 also "spare-group=fred" and it has no failed drives, but does
583 have a spare drive that is big enough, the spare will be moved
584 to the first array.
585
586 I also have the idea of adding a --grow mode which will re-organise
587 the data on an N disk raid0/4/5 array to be on an N+M disk array.
588 I have no concrete plans for this though.
589
590 I got rid of the "v" in the archive file name, and include the
591 version number in the directory created by the archive.
592
593 There is now a man page and mdctl.spec (for rpm) thanks to
594 Danilo Godec <danci@agenda.si>.
595
596 Ofcourse, the man page is now out of date and despite being based on
597 the --help output, is not wholy correct. After I get --follow
598 working properly, I plan to revise the various documentation and/or
599 the code to make sure the two match.