ANNOUNCE-3.2

   1 Subject:  ANNOUNCE: mdadm 3.2 - A tool for managing Soft RAID under Linux (DEVEL ONLY)
   2
   3 I am pleased to announce the availability of
   4    mdadm version 3.2
   5
   6 It is available at the usual places:
   7    countrycode=xx.
   8    http://www.${countrycode}kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/raid/mdadm/
   9 and via git at
  10    git://neil.brown.name/mdadm devel-3.2
  11    http://neil.brown.name/git?p=mdadm
  12
  13 This is a "Developers only" release.  Please don't consider using it
  14 or making it available to others without reading the following.
  15
  16
  17 By far the most significant change in this release related to the
  18 management of reshaping arrays.  This code has been substantially
  19 re-written so that it can work with 'externally managed metadata' -
  20 Intel's IMSM in particular.  We now support level migration and
  21 OnLine Capacity Expansion on these arrays.
  22
  23 However, while the code largely works it has not been tested
  24 exhaustively so there are likely to be problems.  As the reshape code
  25 for native metadata arrays was changed as part of this rewrite these
  26 problems could also result in regressions for reshape of native
  27 metadata.
  28
  29 It is partly to encourage greater testing that this release is being
  30 made.  Any reports of problem - particular reproducible recipes for
  31 triggering the problems - will be gratefully received.
  32
  33 It is hopped that a "3.2.1" release will be available in early March
  34 which will be a bugfix release over this and can be considered
  35 suitable for general use.
  36
  37 Other changes of note:
  38
  39  - Policy framework.
  40    Various policy statements can be made in the mdadm.conf to guide
  41    the behaviour of mdadm, particular with regards to how new devices
  42    are treated by "mdadm -I".
  43    Depending on the 'action' associated with a device (identified by
  44    its 'path') such need devices can be automatically re-added to and
  45    existing array that they previously fell out off, or automatically
  46    added as a spare if they appear to contain no data.
  47
  48  - mdadm now has a limited understanding of partition tables.  This
  49    allows the policy framework to make decisions about partitioned
  50    devices as well.
  51
  52  - --incremental --remove can be told what --path the device was on,
  53    and this info will be recorded so that another device appearing at
  54    the same physical location can be preferentially added to the same
  55    array (provides the spare-same-slot action policy applied to the
  56    path).
  57
  58  - A new flags "--invalid-backup" flag is available in --assemble
  59    mode.  This can be used to re-assemble an array which was stopping
  60    in the middle of a reshape, and for which the 'backup file' is no
  61    longer available or is corrupted.  The array may have some
  62    corruption in it at the point where reshape was up to, but at least
  63    the rest of the array will become available.
  64
  65
  66  - Various internal restructuring - more is needed.
  67
  68
  69 Any feed back and bug reports are always welcomed at:
  70     linux-raid@vger.kernel.org
  71
  72 And please:  don't use this in production - particularly not the
  73 --grow functionality.
  74
  75 NeilBrown 1st February 2011
  76
  77