ANNOUNCE-3.3.4

   1 Subject: ANNOUNCE: mdadm 3.3.4 - A tool for managing md Soft RAID under Linux
   2
   3 I am somewhat disappointed to have to announce the availability of
   4    mdadm version 3.3.4
   5
   6 It is available at the usual places:
   7    http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/raid/mdadm/
   8 and via git at
   9    git://github.com/neilbrown/mdadm
  10    git://neil.brown.name/mdadm
  11    http://git.neil.brown.name/git/mdadm.git
  12
  13 In mdadm-3.3 a change was made to how IMSM (Intel Matrix Storage
  14 Manager) metadata was handled.  Previously an IMSM array would only
  15 be assembled if it was attached to an IMSM controller.
  16
  17 In 3.3 this was relaxed as there are circumstances where the
  18 controller is not properly detected.  Unfortunately this has negative
  19 consequences which have only just come to light.
  20
  21 If you have an IMSM RAID1 configured and then disable RAID in the
  22 BIOS, the metadata will remain on the devices.  If you then install
  23 some other OS on one device and then install Linux on the other, Linux
  24 might eventually start noticing the IMSM metadata (depending a bit on whether
  25 mdadm is included in the initramfs) and might start up the RAID1.  This could
  26 copy one device over the other, thus trashing one of the installations.
  27
  28 Not good.
  29
  30 So with this release IMSM arrays will only be assembled if attached to
  31 an IMSM controller, or if "--force" is given to --assemble, or if the
  32 environment variable IMSM_NO_PLATFORM is set (used primarily for
  33 testing).
  34
  35 I strongly recommend upgrading to 3.3.4 if you are using 3.3 or later.
  36
  37 NeilBrown 3rd August 2015.