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1 .\" -*- nroff -*-
2 .\" Copyright Neil Brown and others.
3 .\" This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
4 .\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
5 .\" the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
6 .\" (at your option) any later version.
7 .\" See file COPYING in distribution for details.
8 .TH MDADM 8 "" v3.2.5
9 .SH NAME
10 mdadm \- manage MD devices
11 .I aka
12 Linux Software RAID
13
14 .SH SYNOPSIS
15
16 .BI mdadm " [mode] <raiddevice> [options] <component-devices>"
17
18 .SH DESCRIPTION
19 RAID devices are virtual devices created from two or more
20 real block devices. This allows multiple devices (typically disk
21 drives or partitions thereof) to be combined into a single device to
22 hold (for example) a single filesystem.
23 Some RAID levels include redundancy and so can survive some degree of
24 device failure.
25
26 Linux Software RAID devices are implemented through the md (Multiple
27 Devices) device driver.
28
29 Currently, Linux supports
30 .B LINEAR
31 md devices,
32 .B RAID0
33 (striping),
34 .B RAID1
35 (mirroring),
36 .BR RAID4 ,
37 .BR RAID5 ,
38 .BR RAID6 ,
39 .BR RAID10 ,
40 .BR MULTIPATH ,
41 .BR FAULTY ,
42 and
43 .BR CONTAINER .
44
45 .B MULTIPATH
46 is not a Software RAID mechanism, but does involve
47 multiple devices:
48 each device is a path to one common physical storage device.
49 New installations should not use md/multipath as it is not well
50 supported and has no ongoing development. Use the Device Mapper based
51 multipath-tools instead.
52
53 .B FAULTY
54 is also not true RAID, and it only involves one device. It
55 provides a layer over a true device that can be used to inject faults.
56
57 .B CONTAINER
58 is different again. A
59 .B CONTAINER
60 is a collection of devices that are
61 managed as a set. This is similar to the set of devices connected to
62 a hardware RAID controller. The set of devices may contain a number
63 of different RAID arrays each utilising some (or all) of the blocks from a
64 number of the devices in the set. For example, two devices in a 5-device set
65 might form a RAID1 using the whole devices. The remaining three might
66 have a RAID5 over the first half of each device, and a RAID0 over the
67 second half.
68
69 With a
70 .BR CONTAINER ,
71 there is one set of metadata that describes all of
72 the arrays in the container. So when
73 .I mdadm
74 creates a
75 .B CONTAINER
76 device, the device just represents the metadata. Other normal arrays (RAID1
77 etc) can be created inside the container.
78
79 .SH MODES
80 mdadm has several major modes of operation:
81 .TP
82 .B Assemble
83 Assemble the components of a previously created
84 array into an active array. Components can be explicitly given
85 or can be searched for.
86 .I mdadm
87 checks that the components
88 do form a bona fide array, and can, on request, fiddle superblock
89 information so as to assemble a faulty array.
90
91 .TP
92 .B Build
93 Build an array that doesn't have per-device metadata (superblocks). For these
94 sorts of arrays,
95 .I mdadm
96 cannot differentiate between initial creation and subsequent assembly
97 of an array. It also cannot perform any checks that appropriate
98 components have been requested. Because of this, the
99 .B Build
100 mode should only be used together with a complete understanding of
101 what you are doing.
102
103 .TP
104 .B Create
105 Create a new array with per-device metadata (superblocks).
106 Appropriate metadata is written to each device, and then the array
107 comprising those devices is activated. A 'resync' process is started
108 to make sure that the array is consistent (e.g. both sides of a mirror
109 contain the same data) but the content of the device is left otherwise
110 untouched.
111 The array can be used as soon as it has been created. There is no
112 need to wait for the initial resync to finish.
113
114 .TP
115 .B "Follow or Monitor"
116 Monitor one or more md devices and act on any state changes. This is
117 only meaningful for RAID1, 4, 5, 6, 10 or multipath arrays, as
118 only these have interesting state. RAID0 or Linear never have
119 missing, spare, or failed drives, so there is nothing to monitor.
120
121 .TP
122 .B "Grow"
123 Grow (or shrink) an array, or otherwise reshape it in some way.
124 Currently supported growth options including changing the active size
125 of component devices and changing the number of active devices in
126 Linear and RAID levels 0/1/4/5/6,
127 changing the RAID level between 0, 1, 5, and 6, and between 0 and 10,
128 changing the chunk size and layout for RAID 0,4,5,6, as well as adding or
129 removing a write-intent bitmap.
130
131 .TP
132 .B "Incremental Assembly"
133 Add a single device to an appropriate array. If the addition of the
134 device makes the array runnable, the array will be started.
135 This provides a convenient interface to a
136 .I hot-plug
137 system. As each device is detected,
138 .I mdadm
139 has a chance to include it in some array as appropriate.
140 Optionally, when the
141 .I \-\-fail
142 flag is passed in we will remove the device from any active array
143 instead of adding it.
144
145 If a
146 .B CONTAINER
147 is passed to
148 .I mdadm
149 in this mode, then any arrays within that container will be assembled
150 and started.
151
152 .TP
153 .B Manage
154 This is for doing things to specific components of an array such as
155 adding new spares and removing faulty devices.
156
157 .TP
158 .B Misc
159 This is an 'everything else' mode that supports operations on active
160 arrays, operations on component devices such as erasing old superblocks, and
161 information gathering operations.
162 .\"This mode allows operations on independent devices such as examine MD
163 .\"superblocks, erasing old superblocks and stopping active arrays.
164
165 .TP
166 .B Auto-detect
167 This mode does not act on a specific device or array, but rather it
168 requests the Linux Kernel to activate any auto-detected arrays.
169 .SH OPTIONS
170
171 .SH Options for selecting a mode are:
172
173 .TP
174 .BR \-A ", " \-\-assemble
175 Assemble a pre-existing array.
176
177 .TP
178 .BR \-B ", " \-\-build
179 Build a legacy array without superblocks.
180
181 .TP
182 .BR \-C ", " \-\-create
183 Create a new array.
184
185 .TP
186 .BR \-F ", " \-\-follow ", " \-\-monitor
187 Select
188 .B Monitor
189 mode.
190
191 .TP
192 .BR \-G ", " \-\-grow
193 Change the size or shape of an active array.
194
195 .TP
196 .BR \-I ", " \-\-incremental
197 Add/remove a single device to/from an appropriate array, and possibly start the array.
198
199 .TP
200 .B \-\-auto-detect
201 Request that the kernel starts any auto-detected arrays. This can only
202 work if
203 .I md
204 is compiled into the kernel \(em not if it is a module.
205 Arrays can be auto-detected by the kernel if all the components are in
206 primary MS-DOS partitions with partition type
207 .BR FD ,
208 and all use v0.90 metadata.
209 In-kernel autodetect is not recommended for new installations. Using
210 .I mdadm
211 to detect and assemble arrays \(em possibly in an
212 .I initrd
213 \(em is substantially more flexible and should be preferred.
214
215 .P
216 If a device is given before any options, or if the first option is
217 .BR \-\-add ,
218 .BR \-\-fail ,
219 .BR \-\-remove ,
220 or
221 .BR \-\-replace ,
222 then the MANAGE mode is assumed.
223 Anything other than these will cause the
224 .B Misc
225 mode to be assumed.
226
227 .SH Options that are not mode-specific are:
228
229 .TP
230 .BR \-h ", " \-\-help
231 Display general help message or, after one of the above options, a
232 mode-specific help message.
233
234 .TP
235 .B \-\-help\-options
236 Display more detailed help about command line parsing and some commonly
237 used options.
238
239 .TP
240 .BR \-V ", " \-\-version
241 Print version information for mdadm.
242
243 .TP
244 .BR \-v ", " \-\-verbose
245 Be more verbose about what is happening. This can be used twice to be
246 extra-verbose.
247 The extra verbosity currently only affects
248 .B \-\-detail \-\-scan
249 and
250 .BR "\-\-examine \-\-scan" .
251
252 .TP
253 .BR \-q ", " \-\-quiet
254 Avoid printing purely informative messages. With this,
255 .I mdadm
256 will be silent unless there is something really important to report.
257
258
259 .TP
260 .BR \-f ", " \-\-force
261 Be more forceful about certain operations. See the various modes for
262 the exact meaning of this option in different contexts.
263
264 .TP
265 .BR \-c ", " \-\-config=
266 Specify the config file. Default is to use
267 .BR /etc/mdadm.conf ,
268 or if that is missing then
269 .BR /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf .
270 If the config file given is
271 .B "partitions"
272 then nothing will be read, but
273 .I mdadm
274 will act as though the config file contained exactly
275 .B "DEVICE partitions containers"
276 and will read
277 .B /proc/partitions
278 to find a list of devices to scan, and
279 .B /proc/mdstat
280 to find a list of containers to examine.
281 If the word
282 .B "none"
283 is given for the config file, then
284 .I mdadm
285 will act as though the config file were empty.
286
287 .TP
288 .BR \-s ", " \-\-scan
289 Scan config file or
290 .B /proc/mdstat
291 for missing information.
292 In general, this option gives
293 .I mdadm
294 permission to get any missing information (like component devices,
295 array devices, array identities, and alert destination) from the
296 configuration file (see previous option);
297 one exception is MISC mode when using
298 .B \-\-detail
299 or
300 .B \-\-stop,
301 in which case
302 .B \-\-scan
303 says to get a list of array devices from
304 .BR /proc/mdstat .
305
306 .TP
307 .BR \-e ", " \-\-metadata=
308 Declare the style of RAID metadata (superblock) to be used. The
309 default is {DEFAULT_METADATA} for
310 .BR \-\-create ,
311 and to guess for other operations.
312 The default can be overridden by setting the
313 .B metadata
314 value for the
315 .B CREATE
316 keyword in
317 .BR mdadm.conf .
318
319 Options are:
320 .RS
321 .ie '{DEFAULT_METADATA}'0.90'
322 .IP "0, 0.90, default"
323 .el
324 .IP "0, 0.90"
325 Use the original 0.90 format superblock. This format limits arrays to
326 28 component devices and limits component devices of levels 1 and
327 greater to 2 terabytes. It is also possible for there to be confusion
328 about whether the superblock applies to a whole device or just the
329 last partition, if that partition starts on a 64K boundary.
330 .ie '{DEFAULT_METADATA}'0.90'
331 .IP "1, 1.0, 1.1, 1.2"
332 .el
333 .IP "1, 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 default"
334 Use the new version-1 format superblock. This has fewer restrictions.
335 It can easily be moved between hosts with different endian-ness, and a
336 recovery operation can be checkpointed and restarted. The different
337 sub-versions store the superblock at different locations on the
338 device, either at the end (for 1.0), at the start (for 1.1) or 4K from
339 the start (for 1.2). "1" is equivalent to "1.2" (the commonly
340 preferred 1.x format).
341 'if '{DEFAULT_METADATA}'1.2' "default" is equivalent to "1.2".
342 .IP ddf
343 Use the "Industry Standard" DDF (Disk Data Format) format defined by
344 SNIA.
345 When creating a DDF array a
346 .B CONTAINER
347 will be created, and normal arrays can be created in that container.
348 .IP imsm
349 Use the Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager metadata format. This creates a
350 .B CONTAINER
351 which is managed in a similar manner to DDF, and is supported by an
352 option-rom on some platforms:
353 .IP
354 .B http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/matrixstorage_sb.htm
355 .PP
356 .RE
357
358 .TP
359 .B \-\-homehost=
360 This will override any
361 .B HOMEHOST
362 setting in the config file and provides the identity of the host which
363 should be considered the home for any arrays.
364
365 When creating an array, the
366 .B homehost
367 will be recorded in the metadata. For version-1 superblocks, it will
368 be prefixed to the array name. For version-0.90 superblocks, part of
369 the SHA1 hash of the hostname will be stored in the later half of the
370 UUID.
371
372 When reporting information about an array, any array which is tagged
373 for the given homehost will be reported as such.
374
375 When using Auto-Assemble, only arrays tagged for the given homehost
376 will be allowed to use 'local' names (i.e. not ending in '_' followed
377 by a digit string). See below under
378 .BR "Auto Assembly" .
379
380 .TP
381 .B \-\-prefer=
382 When
383 .I mdadm
384 needs to print the name for a device it normally finds the name in
385 .B /dev
386 which refers to the device and is shortest. When a path component is
387 given with
388 .B \-\-prefer
389 .I mdadm
390 will prefer a longer name if it contains that component. For example
391 .B \-\-prefer=by-uuid
392 will prefer a name in a subdirectory of
393 .B /dev
394 called
395 .BR by-uuid .
396
397 This functionality is currently only provided by
398 .B \-\-detail
399 and
400 .BR \-\-monitor .
401
402 .SH For create, build, or grow:
403
404 .TP
405 .BR \-n ", " \-\-raid\-devices=
406 Specify the number of active devices in the array. This, plus the
407 number of spare devices (see below) must equal the number of
408 .I component-devices
409 (including "\fBmissing\fP" devices)
410 that are listed on the command line for
411 .BR \-\-create .
412 Setting a value of 1 is probably
413 a mistake and so requires that
414 .B \-\-force
415 be specified first. A value of 1 will then be allowed for linear,
416 multipath, RAID0 and RAID1. It is never allowed for RAID4, RAID5 or RAID6.
417 .br
418 This number can only be changed using
419 .B \-\-grow
420 for RAID1, RAID4, RAID5 and RAID6 arrays, and only on kernels which provide
421 the necessary support.
422
423 .TP
424 .BR \-x ", " \-\-spare\-devices=
425 Specify the number of spare (eXtra) devices in the initial array.
426 Spares can also be added
427 and removed later. The number of component devices listed
428 on the command line must equal the number of RAID devices plus the
429 number of spare devices.
430
431 .TP
432 .BR \-z ", " \-\-size=
433 Amount (in Kibibytes) of space to use from each drive in RAID levels 1/4/5/6.
434 This must be a multiple of the chunk size, and must leave about 128Kb
435 of space at the end of the drive for the RAID superblock.
436 If this is not specified
437 (as it normally is not) the smallest drive (or partition) sets the
438 size, though if there is a variance among the drives of greater than 1%, a warning is
439 issued.
440
441 A suffix of 'M' or 'G' can be given to indicate Megabytes or
442 Gigabytes respectively.
443
444 Sometimes a replacement drive can be a little smaller than the
445 original drives though this should be minimised by IDEMA standards.
446 Such a replacement drive will be rejected by
447 .IR md .
448 To guard against this it can be useful to set the initial size
449 slightly smaller than the smaller device with the aim that it will
450 still be larger than any replacement.
451
452 This value can be set with
453 .B \-\-grow
454 for RAID level 1/4/5/6 though
455 .B CONTAINER
456 based arrays such as those with IMSM metadata may not be able to
457 support this.
458 If the array was created with a size smaller than the currently
459 active drives, the extra space can be accessed using
460 .BR \-\-grow .
461 The size can be given as
462 .B max
463 which means to choose the largest size that fits on all current drives.
464
465 Before reducing the size of the array (with
466 .BR "\-\-grow \-\-size=" )
467 you should make sure that space isn't needed. If the device holds a
468 filesystem, you would need to resize the filesystem to use less space.
469
470 After reducing the array size you should check that the data stored in
471 the device is still available. If the device holds a filesystem, then
472 an 'fsck' of the filesystem is a minimum requirement. If there are
473 problems the array can be made bigger again with no loss with another
474 .B "\-\-grow \-\-size="
475 command.
476
477 This value cannot be used when creating a
478 .B CONTAINER
479 such as with DDF and IMSM metadata, though it perfectly valid when
480 creating an array inside a container.
481
482 .TP
483 .BR \-Z ", " \-\-array\-size=
484 This is only meaningful with
485 .B \-\-grow
486 and its effect is not persistent: when the array is stopped and
487 restarted the default array size will be restored.
488
489 Setting the array-size causes the array to appear smaller to programs
490 that access the data. This is particularly needed before reshaping an
491 array so that it will be smaller. As the reshape is not reversible,
492 but setting the size with
493 .B \-\-array-size
494 is, it is required that the array size is reduced as appropriate
495 before the number of devices in the array is reduced.
496
497 Before reducing the size of the array you should make sure that space
498 isn't needed. If the device holds a filesystem, you would need to
499 resize the filesystem to use less space.
500
501 After reducing the array size you should check that the data stored in
502 the device is still available. If the device holds a filesystem, then
503 an 'fsck' of the filesystem is a minimum requirement. If there are
504 problems the array can be made bigger again with no loss with another
505 .B "\-\-grow \-\-array\-size="
506 command.
507
508 A suffix of 'M' or 'G' can be given to indicate Megabytes or
509 Gigabytes respectively.
510 A value of
511 .B max
512 restores the apparent size of the array to be whatever the real
513 amount of available space is.
514
515 .TP
516 .BR \-c ", " \-\-chunk=
517 Specify chunk size of kibibytes. The default when creating an
518 array is 512KB. To ensure compatibility with earlier versions, the
519 default when Building and array with no persistent metadata is 64KB.
520 This is only meaningful for RAID0, RAID4, RAID5, RAID6, and RAID10.
521
522 RAID4, RAID5, RAID6, and RAID10 require the chunk size to be a power
523 of 2. In any case it must be a multiple of 4KB.
524
525 A suffix of 'M' or 'G' can be given to indicate Megabytes or
526 Gigabytes respectively.
527
528 .TP
529 .BR \-\-rounding=
530 Specify rounding factor for a Linear array. The size of each
531 component will be rounded down to a multiple of this size.
532 This is a synonym for
533 .B \-\-chunk
534 but highlights the different meaning for Linear as compared to other
535 RAID levels. The default is 64K if a kernel earlier than 2.6.16 is in
536 use, and is 0K (i.e. no rounding) in later kernels.
537
538 .TP
539 .BR \-l ", " \-\-level=
540 Set RAID level. When used with
541 .BR \-\-create ,
542 options are: linear, raid0, 0, stripe, raid1, 1, mirror, raid4, 4,
543 raid5, 5, raid6, 6, raid10, 10, multipath, mp, faulty, container.
544 Obviously some of these are synonymous.
545
546 When a
547 .B CONTAINER
548 metadata type is requested, only the
549 .B container
550 level is permitted, and it does not need to be explicitly given.
551
552 When used with
553 .BR \-\-build ,
554 only linear, stripe, raid0, 0, raid1, multipath, mp, and faulty are valid.
555
556 Can be used with
557 .B \-\-grow
558 to change the RAID level in some cases. See LEVEL CHANGES below.
559
560 .TP
561 .BR \-p ", " \-\-layout=
562 This option configures the fine details of data layout for RAID5, RAID6,
563 and RAID10 arrays, and controls the failure modes for
564 .IR faulty .
565
566 The layout of the RAID5 parity block can be one of
567 .BR left\-asymmetric ,
568 .BR left\-symmetric ,
569 .BR right\-asymmetric ,
570 .BR right\-symmetric ,
571 .BR la ", " ra ", " ls ", " rs .
572 The default is
573 .BR left\-symmetric .
574
575 It is also possible to cause RAID5 to use a RAID4-like layout by
576 choosing
577 .BR parity\-first ,
578 or
579 .BR parity\-last .
580
581 Finally for RAID5 there are DDF\-compatible layouts,
582 .BR ddf\-zero\-restart ,
583 .BR ddf\-N\-restart ,
584 and
585 .BR ddf\-N\-continue .
586
587 These same layouts are available for RAID6. There are also 4 layouts
588 that will provide an intermediate stage for converting between RAID5
589 and RAID6. These provide a layout which is identical to the
590 corresponding RAID5 layout on the first N\-1 devices, and has the 'Q'
591 syndrome (the second 'parity' block used by RAID6) on the last device.
592 These layouts are:
593 .BR left\-symmetric\-6 ,
594 .BR right\-symmetric\-6 ,
595 .BR left\-asymmetric\-6 ,
596 .BR right\-asymmetric\-6 ,
597 and
598 .BR parity\-first\-6 .
599
600 When setting the failure mode for level
601 .I faulty,
602 the options are:
603 .BR write\-transient ", " wt ,
604 .BR read\-transient ", " rt ,
605 .BR write\-persistent ", " wp ,
606 .BR read\-persistent ", " rp ,
607 .BR write\-all ,
608 .BR read\-fixable ", " rf ,
609 .BR clear ", " flush ", " none .
610
611 Each failure mode can be followed by a number, which is used as a period
612 between fault generation. Without a number, the fault is generated
613 once on the first relevant request. With a number, the fault will be
614 generated after that many requests, and will continue to be generated
615 every time the period elapses.
616
617 Multiple failure modes can be current simultaneously by using the
618 .B \-\-grow
619 option to set subsequent failure modes.
620
621 "clear" or "none" will remove any pending or periodic failure modes,
622 and "flush" will clear any persistent faults.
623
624 Finally, the layout options for RAID10 are one of 'n', 'o' or 'f' followed
625 by a small number. The default is 'n2'. The supported options are:
626
627 .I 'n'
628 signals 'near' copies. Multiple copies of one data block are at
629 similar offsets in different devices.
630
631 .I 'o'
632 signals 'offset' copies. Rather than the chunks being duplicated
633 within a stripe, whole stripes are duplicated but are rotated by one
634 device so duplicate blocks are on different devices. Thus subsequent
635 copies of a block are in the next drive, and are one chunk further
636 down.
637
638 .I 'f'
639 signals 'far' copies
640 (multiple copies have very different offsets).
641 See md(4) for more detail about 'near', 'offset', and 'far'.
642
643 The number is the number of copies of each datablock. 2 is normal, 3
644 can be useful. This number can be at most equal to the number of
645 devices in the array. It does not need to divide evenly into that
646 number (e.g. it is perfectly legal to have an 'n2' layout for an array
647 with an odd number of devices).
648
649 When an array is converted between RAID5 and RAID6 an intermediate
650 RAID6 layout is used in which the second parity block (Q) is always on
651 the last device. To convert a RAID5 to RAID6 and leave it in this new
652 layout (which does not require re-striping) use
653 .BR \-\-layout=preserve .
654 This will try to avoid any restriping.
655
656 The converse of this is
657 .B \-\-layout=normalise
658 which will change a non-standard RAID6 layout into a more standard
659 arrangement.
660
661 .TP
662 .BR \-\-parity=
663 same as
664 .B \-\-layout
665 (thus explaining the p of
666 .BR \-p ).
667
668 .TP
669 .BR \-b ", " \-\-bitmap=
670 Specify a file to store a write-intent bitmap in. The file should not
671 exist unless
672 .B \-\-force
673 is also given. The same file should be provided
674 when assembling the array. If the word
675 .B "internal"
676 is given, then the bitmap is stored with the metadata on the array,
677 and so is replicated on all devices. If the word
678 .B "none"
679 is given with
680 .B \-\-grow
681 mode, then any bitmap that is present is removed.
682
683 To help catch typing errors, the filename must contain at least one
684 slash ('/') if it is a real file (not 'internal' or 'none').
685
686 Note: external bitmaps are only known to work on ext2 and ext3.
687 Storing bitmap files on other filesystems may result in serious problems.
688
689 When creating an array on devices which are 100G or larger,
690 .I mdadm
691 automatically adds an internal bitmap as it will usually be
692 beneficial. This can be suppressed with
693 .B "\-\-bitmap=none".
694
695 .TP
696 .BR \-\-bitmap\-chunk=
697 Set the chunksize of the bitmap. Each bit corresponds to that many
698 Kilobytes of storage.
699 When using a file based bitmap, the default is to use the smallest
700 size that is at-least 4 and requires no more than 2^21 chunks.
701 When using an
702 .B internal
703 bitmap, the chunksize defaults to 64Meg, or larger if necessary to
704 fit the bitmap into the available space.
705
706 A suffix of 'M' or 'G' can be given to indicate Megabytes or
707 Gigabytes respectively.
708
709 .TP
710 .BR \-W ", " \-\-write\-mostly
711 subsequent devices listed in a
712 .BR \-\-build ,
713 .BR \-\-create ,
714 or
715 .B \-\-add
716 command will be flagged as 'write-mostly'. This is valid for RAID1
717 only and means that the 'md' driver will avoid reading from these
718 devices if at all possible. This can be useful if mirroring over a
719 slow link.
720
721 .TP
722 .BR \-\-write\-behind=
723 Specify that write-behind mode should be enabled (valid for RAID1
724 only). If an argument is specified, it will set the maximum number
725 of outstanding writes allowed. The default value is 256.
726 A write-intent bitmap is required in order to use write-behind
727 mode, and write-behind is only attempted on drives marked as
728 .IR write-mostly .
729
730 .TP
731 .BR \-\-assume\-clean
732 Tell
733 .I mdadm
734 that the array pre-existed and is known to be clean. It can be useful
735 when trying to recover from a major failure as you can be sure that no
736 data will be affected unless you actually write to the array. It can
737 also be used when creating a RAID1 or RAID10 if you want to avoid the
738 initial resync, however this practice \(em while normally safe \(em is not
739 recommended. Use this only if you really know what you are doing.
740 .IP
741 When the devices that will be part of a new array were filled
742 with zeros before creation the operator knows the array is
743 actually clean. If that is the case, such as after running
744 badblocks, this argument can be used to tell mdadm the
745 facts the operator knows.
746 .IP
747 When an array is resized to a larger size with
748 .B "\-\-grow \-\-size="
749 the new space is normally resynced in that same way that the whole
750 array is resynced at creation. From Linux version 3.0,
751 .B \-\-assume\-clean
752 can be used with that command to avoid the automatic resync.
753
754 .TP
755 .BR \-\-backup\-file=
756 This is needed when
757 .B \-\-grow
758 is used to increase the number of raid-devices in a RAID5 or RAID6 if
759 there are no spare devices available, or to shrink, change RAID level
760 or layout. See the GROW MODE section below on RAID\-DEVICES CHANGES.
761 The file must be stored on a separate device, not on the RAID array
762 being reshaped.
763
764 .TP
765 .B \-\-data\-offset=
766 Arrays with 1.x metadata can leave a gap between the start of the
767 device and the start of array data. This gap can be used for various
768 metadata. The start of data is known as the
769 .IR data\-offset .
770 Normally an appropriate data offset is computed automatically.
771 However it can be useful to set it explicitly such as when re-creating
772 an array which was originally created using a different version of
773 .I mdadm
774 which computed a different offset.
775
776 Setting the offset explicitly over-rides the default. The value given
777 is in Kilobytes unless an 'M' or 'G' suffix is given.
778
779 Since Linux 3.4,
780 .B \-\-data\-offset
781 can also be used with
782 .B --grow
783 for some RAID levels (initially on RAID10). This allows the
784 data\-offset to be changed as part of the reshape process. When the
785 data offset is changed, no backup file is required as the difference
786 in offsets is used to provide the same functionality.
787
788 When the new offset is earlier than the old offset, the number of
789 devices in the array cannot shrink. When it is after the old offset,
790 the number of devices in the array cannot increase.
791
792 When creating an array,
793 .B \-\-data\-offset
794 can be specified as
795 .BR variable .
796 In the case each member device is expected to have a offset appended
797 to the name, separated by a colon. This makes it possible to recreate
798 exactly an array which has varying data offsets (as can happen when
799 different versions of
800 .I mdadm
801 are used to add different devices).
802
803 .TP
804 .BR \-\-continue
805 This option is complementary to the
806 .B \-\-freeze-reshape
807 option for assembly. It is needed when
808 .B \-\-grow
809 operation is interrupted and it is not restarted automatically due to
810 .B \-\-freeze-reshape
811 usage during array assembly. This option is used together with
812 .BR \-G
813 , (
814 .BR \-\-grow
815 ) command and device for a pending reshape to be continued.
816 All parameters required for reshape continuation will be read from array metadata.
817 If initial
818 .BR \-\-grow
819 command had required
820 .BR \-\-backup\-file=
821 option to be set, continuation option will require to have exactly the same
822 backup file given as well.
823 .IP
824 Any other parameter passed together with
825 .BR \-\-continue
826 option will be ignored.
827
828 .TP
829 .BR \-N ", " \-\-name=
830 Set a
831 .B name
832 for the array. This is currently only effective when creating an
833 array with a version-1 superblock, or an array in a DDF container.
834 The name is a simple textual string that can be used to identify array
835 components when assembling. If name is needed but not specified, it
836 is taken from the basename of the device that is being created.
837 e.g. when creating
838 .I /dev/md/home
839 the
840 .B name
841 will default to
842 .IR home .
843
844 .TP
845 .BR \-R ", " \-\-run
846 Insist that
847 .I mdadm
848 run the array, even if some of the components
849 appear to be active in another array or filesystem. Normally
850 .I mdadm
851 will ask for confirmation before including such components in an
852 array. This option causes that question to be suppressed.
853
854 .TP
855 .BR \-f ", " \-\-force
856 Insist that
857 .I mdadm
858 accept the geometry and layout specified without question. Normally
859 .I mdadm
860 will not allow creation of an array with only one device, and will try
861 to create a RAID5 array with one missing drive (as this makes the
862 initial resync work faster). With
863 .BR \-\-force ,
864 .I mdadm
865 will not try to be so clever.
866
867 .TP
868 .BR \-o ", " \-\-readonly
869 Start the array
870 .B read only
871 rather than read-write as normal. No writes will be allowed to the
872 array, and no resync, recovery, or reshape will be started.
873
874 .TP
875 .BR \-a ", " "\-\-auto{=yes,md,mdp,part,p}{NN}"
876 Instruct mdadm how to create the device file if needed, possibly allocating
877 an unused minor number. "md" causes a non-partitionable array
878 to be used (though since Linux 2.6.28, these array devices are in fact
879 partitionable). "mdp", "part" or "p" causes a partitionable array (2.6 and
880 later) to be used. "yes" requires the named md device to have
881 a 'standard' format, and the type and minor number will be determined
882 from this. With mdadm 3.0, device creation is normally left up to
883 .I udev
884 so this option is unlikely to be needed.
885 See DEVICE NAMES below.
886
887 The argument can also come immediately after
888 "\-a". e.g. "\-ap".
889
890 If
891 .B \-\-auto
892 is not given on the command line or in the config file, then
893 the default will be
894 .BR \-\-auto=yes .
895
896 If
897 .B \-\-scan
898 is also given, then any
899 .I auto=
900 entries in the config file will override the
901 .B \-\-auto
902 instruction given on the command line.
903
904 For partitionable arrays,
905 .I mdadm
906 will create the device file for the whole array and for the first 4
907 partitions. A different number of partitions can be specified at the
908 end of this option (e.g.
909 .BR \-\-auto=p7 ).
910 If the device name ends with a digit, the partition names add a 'p',
911 and a number, e.g.
912 .IR /dev/md/home1p3 .
913 If there is no trailing digit, then the partition names just have a
914 number added, e.g.
915 .IR /dev/md/scratch3 .
916
917 If the md device name is in a 'standard' format as described in DEVICE
918 NAMES, then it will be created, if necessary, with the appropriate
919 device number based on that name. If the device name is not in one of these
920 formats, then a unused device number will be allocated. The device
921 number will be considered unused if there is no active array for that
922 number, and there is no entry in /dev for that number and with a
923 non-standard name. Names that are not in 'standard' format are only
924 allowed in "/dev/md/".
925
926 This is meaningful with
927 .B \-\-create
928 or
929 .BR \-\-build .
930
931 .TP
932 .BR \-a ", " "\-\-add"
933 This option can be used in Grow mode in two cases.
934
935 If the target array is a Linear array, then
936 .B \-\-add
937 can be used to add one or more devices to the array. They
938 are simply catenated on to the end of the array. Once added, the
939 devices cannot be removed.
940
941 If the
942 .B \-\-raid\-disks
943 option is being used to increase the number of devices in an array,
944 then
945 .B \-\-add
946 can be used to add some extra devices to be included in the array.
947 In most cases this is not needed as the extra devices can be added as
948 spares first, and then the number of raid-disks can be changed.
949 However for RAID0, it is not possible to add spares. So to increase
950 the number of devices in a RAID0, it is necessary to set the new
951 number of devices, and to add the new devices, in the same command.
952
953 .SH For assemble:
954
955 .TP
956 .BR \-u ", " \-\-uuid=
957 uuid of array to assemble. Devices which don't have this uuid are
958 excluded
959
960 .TP
961 .BR \-m ", " \-\-super\-minor=
962 Minor number of device that array was created for. Devices which
963 don't have this minor number are excluded. If you create an array as
964 /dev/md1, then all superblocks will contain the minor number 1, even if
965 the array is later assembled as /dev/md2.
966
967 Giving the literal word "dev" for
968 .B \-\-super\-minor
969 will cause
970 .I mdadm
971 to use the minor number of the md device that is being assembled.
972 e.g. when assembling
973 .BR /dev/md0 ,
974 .B \-\-super\-minor=dev
975 will look for super blocks with a minor number of 0.
976
977 .B \-\-super\-minor
978 is only relevant for v0.90 metadata, and should not normally be used.
979 Using
980 .B \-\-uuid
981 is much safer.
982
983 .TP
984 .BR \-N ", " \-\-name=
985 Specify the name of the array to assemble. This must be the name
986 that was specified when creating the array. It must either match
987 the name stored in the superblock exactly, or it must match
988 with the current
989 .I homehost
990 prefixed to the start of the given name.
991
992 .TP
993 .BR \-f ", " \-\-force
994 Assemble the array even if the metadata on some devices appears to be
995 out-of-date. If
996 .I mdadm
997 cannot find enough working devices to start the array, but can find
998 some devices that are recorded as having failed, then it will mark
999 those devices as working so that the array can be started.
1000 An array which requires
1001 .B \-\-force
1002 to be started may contain data corruption. Use it carefully.
1003
1004 .TP
1005 .BR \-R ", " \-\-run
1006 Attempt to start the array even if fewer drives were given than were
1007 present last time the array was active. Normally if not all the
1008 expected drives are found and
1009 .B \-\-scan
1010 is not used, then the array will be assembled but not started.
1011 With
1012 .B \-\-run
1013 an attempt will be made to start it anyway.
1014
1015 .TP
1016 .B \-\-no\-degraded
1017 This is the reverse of
1018 .B \-\-run
1019 in that it inhibits the startup of array unless all expected drives
1020 are present. This is only needed with
1021 .B \-\-scan,
1022 and can be used if the physical connections to devices are
1023 not as reliable as you would like.
1024
1025 .TP
1026 .BR \-a ", " "\-\-auto{=no,yes,md,mdp,part}"
1027 See this option under Create and Build options.
1028
1029 .TP
1030 .BR \-b ", " \-\-bitmap=
1031 Specify the bitmap file that was given when the array was created. If
1032 an array has an
1033 .B internal
1034 bitmap, there is no need to specify this when assembling the array.
1035
1036 .TP
1037 .BR \-\-backup\-file=
1038 If
1039 .B \-\-backup\-file
1040 was used while reshaping an array (e.g. changing number of devices or
1041 chunk size) and the system crashed during the critical section, then the same
1042 .B \-\-backup\-file
1043 must be presented to
1044 .B \-\-assemble
1045 to allow possibly corrupted data to be restored, and the reshape
1046 to be completed.
1047
1048 .TP
1049 .BR \-\-invalid\-backup
1050 If the file needed for the above option is not available for any
1051 reason an empty file can be given together with this option to
1052 indicate that the backup file is invalid. In this case the data that
1053 was being rearranged at the time of the crash could be irrecoverably
1054 lost, but the rest of the array may still be recoverable. This option
1055 should only be used as a last resort if there is no way to recover the
1056 backup file.
1057
1058
1059 .TP
1060 .BR \-U ", " \-\-update=
1061 Update the superblock on each device while assembling the array. The
1062 argument given to this flag can be one of
1063 .BR sparc2.2 ,
1064 .BR summaries ,
1065 .BR uuid ,
1066 .BR name ,
1067 .BR homehost ,
1068 .BR resync ,
1069 .BR byteorder ,
1070 .BR devicesize ,
1071 .BR no\-bitmap ,
1072 .BR bbl ,
1073 .BR no-\bbl ,
1074 or
1075 .BR super\-minor .
1076
1077 The
1078 .B sparc2.2
1079 option will adjust the superblock of an array what was created on a Sparc
1080 machine running a patched 2.2 Linux kernel. This kernel got the
1081 alignment of part of the superblock wrong. You can use the
1082 .B "\-\-examine \-\-sparc2.2"
1083 option to
1084 .I mdadm
1085 to see what effect this would have.
1086
1087 The
1088 .B super\-minor
1089 option will update the
1090 .B "preferred minor"
1091 field on each superblock to match the minor number of the array being
1092 assembled.
1093 This can be useful if
1094 .B \-\-examine
1095 reports a different "Preferred Minor" to
1096 .BR \-\-detail .
1097 In some cases this update will be performed automatically
1098 by the kernel driver. In particular the update happens automatically
1099 at the first write to an array with redundancy (RAID level 1 or
1100 greater) on a 2.6 (or later) kernel.
1101
1102 The
1103 .B uuid
1104 option will change the uuid of the array. If a UUID is given with the
1105 .B \-\-uuid
1106 option that UUID will be used as a new UUID and will
1107 .B NOT
1108 be used to help identify the devices in the array.
1109 If no
1110 .B \-\-uuid
1111 is given, a random UUID is chosen.
1112
1113 The
1114 .B name
1115 option will change the
1116 .I name
1117 of the array as stored in the superblock. This is only supported for
1118 version-1 superblocks.
1119
1120 The
1121 .B homehost
1122 option will change the
1123 .I homehost
1124 as recorded in the superblock. For version-0 superblocks, this is the
1125 same as updating the UUID.
1126 For version-1 superblocks, this involves updating the name.
1127
1128 The
1129 .B resync
1130 option will cause the array to be marked
1131 .I dirty
1132 meaning that any redundancy in the array (e.g. parity for RAID5,
1133 copies for RAID1) may be incorrect. This will cause the RAID system
1134 to perform a "resync" pass to make sure that all redundant information
1135 is correct.
1136
1137 The
1138 .B byteorder
1139 option allows arrays to be moved between machines with different
1140 byte-order.
1141 When assembling such an array for the first time after a move, giving
1142 .B "\-\-update=byteorder"
1143 will cause
1144 .I mdadm
1145 to expect superblocks to have their byteorder reversed, and will
1146 correct that order before assembling the array. This is only valid
1147 with original (Version 0.90) superblocks.
1148
1149 The
1150 .B summaries
1151 option will correct the summaries in the superblock. That is the
1152 counts of total, working, active, failed, and spare devices.
1153
1154 The
1155 .B devicesize
1156 option will rarely be of use. It applies to version 1.1 and 1.2 metadata
1157 only (where the metadata is at the start of the device) and is only
1158 useful when the component device has changed size (typically become
1159 larger). The version 1 metadata records the amount of the device that
1160 can be used to store data, so if a device in a version 1.1 or 1.2
1161 array becomes larger, the metadata will still be visible, but the
1162 extra space will not. In this case it might be useful to assemble the
1163 array with
1164 .BR \-\-update=devicesize .
1165 This will cause
1166 .I mdadm
1167 to determine the maximum usable amount of space on each device and
1168 update the relevant field in the metadata.
1169
1170 The
1171 .B no\-bitmap
1172 option can be used when an array has an internal bitmap which is
1173 corrupt in some way so that assembling the array normally fails. It
1174 will cause any internal bitmap to be ignored.
1175
1176 The
1177 .B bbl
1178 option will reserve space in each device for a bad block list. This
1179 will be 4K in size and positioned near the end of any free space
1180 between the superblock and the data.
1181
1182 The
1183 .B no\-bbl
1184 option will cause any reservation of space for a bad block list to be
1185 removed. If the bad block list contains entries, this will fail, as
1186 removing the list could cause data corruption.
1187
1188 .TP
1189 .BR \-\-freeze\-reshape
1190 Option is intended to be used in start-up scripts during initrd boot phase.
1191 When array under reshape is assembled during initrd phase, this option
1192 stops reshape after reshape critical section is being restored. This happens
1193 before file system pivot operation and avoids loss of file system context.
1194 Losing file system context would cause reshape to be broken.
1195
1196 Reshape can be continued later using the
1197 .B \-\-continue
1198 option for the grow command.
1199
1200 .SH For Manage mode:
1201
1202 .TP
1203 .BR \-t ", " \-\-test
1204 Unless a more serious error occurred,
1205 .I mdadm
1206 will exit with a status of 2 if no changes were made to the array and
1207 0 if at least one change was made.
1208 This can be useful when an indirect specifier such as
1209 .BR missing ,
1210 .B detached
1211 or
1212 .B faulty
1213 is used in requesting an operation on the array.
1214 .B \-\-test
1215 will report failure if these specifiers didn't find any match.
1216
1217 .TP
1218 .BR \-a ", " \-\-add
1219 hot-add listed devices.
1220 If a device appears to have recently been part of the array
1221 (possibly it failed or was removed) the device is re\-added as described
1222 in the next point.
1223 If that fails or the device was never part of the array, the device is
1224 added as a hot-spare.
1225 If the array is degraded, it will immediately start to rebuild data
1226 onto that spare.
1227
1228 Note that this and the following options are only meaningful on array
1229 with redundancy. They don't apply to RAID0 or Linear.
1230
1231 .TP
1232 .BR \-\-re\-add
1233 re\-add a device that was previous removed from an array.
1234 If the metadata on the device reports that it is a member of the
1235 array, and the slot that it used is still vacant, then the device will
1236 be added back to the array in the same position. This will normally
1237 cause the data for that device to be recovered. However based on the
1238 event count on the device, the recovery may only require sections that
1239 are flagged a write-intent bitmap to be recovered or may not require
1240 any recovery at all.
1241
1242 When used on an array that has no metadata (i.e. it was built with
1243 .BR \-\-build)
1244 it will be assumed that bitmap-based recovery is enough to make the
1245 device fully consistent with the array.
1246
1247 When used with v1.x metadata,
1248 .B \-\-re\-add
1249 can be accompanied by
1250 .BR \-\-update=devicesize ,
1251 .BR \-\-update=bbl ", or"
1252 .BR \-\-update=no\-bbl .
1253 See the description of these option when used in Assemble mode for an
1254 explanation of their use.
1255
1256 If the device name given is
1257 .B missing
1258 then
1259 .I mdadm
1260 will try to find any device that looks like it should be
1261 part of the array but isn't and will try to re\-add all such devices.
1262
1263 If the device name given is
1264 .B faulty
1265 then
1266 .I mdadm
1267 will find all devices in the array that are marked
1268 .BR faulty ,
1269 remove them and attempt to immediately re\-add them. This can be
1270 useful if you are certain that the reason for failure has been
1271 resolved.
1272
1273 .TP
1274 .BR \-r ", " \-\-remove
1275 remove listed devices. They must not be active. i.e. they should
1276 be failed or spare devices.
1277
1278 As well as the name of a device file
1279 (e.g.
1280 .BR /dev/sda1 )
1281 the words
1282 .BR failed ,
1283 .B detached
1284 and names like
1285 .B set-A
1286 can be given to
1287 .BR \-\-remove .
1288 The first causes all failed device to be removed. The second causes
1289 any device which is no longer connected to the system (i.e an 'open'
1290 returns
1291 .BR ENXIO )
1292 to be removed.
1293 The third will remove a set as describe below under
1294 .BR \-\-fail .
1295
1296 .TP
1297 .BR \-f ", " \-\-fail
1298 Mark listed devices as faulty.
1299 As well as the name of a device file, the word
1300 .B detached
1301 or a set name like
1302 .B set\-A
1303 can be given. The former will cause any device that has been detached from
1304 the system to be marked as failed. It can then be removed.
1305
1306 For RAID10 arrays where the number of copies evenly divides the number
1307 of devices, the devices can be conceptually divided into sets where
1308 each set contains a single complete copy of the data on the array.
1309 Sometimes a RAID10 array will be configured so that these sets are on
1310 separate controllers. In this case all the devices in one set can be
1311 failed by giving a name like
1312 .B set\-A
1313 or
1314 .B set\-B
1315 to
1316 .BR \-\-fail .
1317 The appropriate set names are reported by
1318 .BR \-\-detail .
1319
1320 .TP
1321 .BR \-\-set\-faulty
1322 same as
1323 .BR \-\-fail .
1324
1325 .TP
1326 .B \-\-replace
1327 Mark listed devices as requiring replacement. As soon as a spare is
1328 available, it will be rebuilt and will replace the marked device.
1329 This is similar to marking a device as faulty, but the device remains
1330 in service during the recovery process to increase resilience against
1331 multiple failures. When the replacement process finishes, the
1332 replaced device will be marked as faulty.
1333
1334 .TP
1335 .B \-\-with
1336 This can follow a list of
1337 .B \-\-replace
1338 devices. The devices listed after
1339 .B \-\-with
1340 will be preferentially used to replace the devices listed after
1341 .BR \-\-replace .
1342 These device must already be spare devices in the array.
1343
1344 .TP
1345 .BR \-\-write\-mostly
1346 Subsequent devices that are added or re\-added will have the 'write-mostly'
1347 flag set. This is only valid for RAID1 and means that the 'md' driver
1348 will avoid reading from these devices if possible.
1349 .TP
1350 .BR \-\-readwrite
1351 Subsequent devices that are added or re\-added will have the 'write-mostly'
1352 flag cleared.
1353
1354 .P
1355 Each of these options requires that the first device listed is the array
1356 to be acted upon, and the remainder are component devices to be added,
1357 removed, marked as faulty, etc. Several different operations can be
1358 specified for different devices, e.g.
1359 .in +5
1360 mdadm /dev/md0 \-\-add /dev/sda1 \-\-fail /dev/sdb1 \-\-remove /dev/sdb1
1361 .in -5
1362 Each operation applies to all devices listed until the next
1363 operation.
1364
1365 If an array is using a write-intent bitmap, then devices which have
1366 been removed can be re\-added in a way that avoids a full
1367 reconstruction but instead just updates the blocks that have changed
1368 since the device was removed. For arrays with persistent metadata
1369 (superblocks) this is done automatically. For arrays created with
1370 .B \-\-build
1371 mdadm needs to be told that this device we removed recently with
1372 .BR \-\-re\-add .
1373
1374 Devices can only be removed from an array if they are not in active
1375 use, i.e. that must be spares or failed devices. To remove an active
1376 device, it must first be marked as
1377 .B faulty.
1378
1379 .SH For Misc mode:
1380
1381 .TP
1382 .BR \-Q ", " \-\-query
1383 Examine a device to see
1384 (1) if it is an md device and (2) if it is a component of an md
1385 array.
1386 Information about what is discovered is presented.
1387
1388 .TP
1389 .BR \-D ", " \-\-detail
1390 Print details of one or more md devices.
1391
1392 .TP
1393 .BR \-\-detail\-platform
1394 Print details of the platform's RAID capabilities (firmware / hardware
1395 topology) for a given metadata format. If used without argument, mdadm
1396 will scan all controllers looking for their capabilities. Otherwise, mdadm
1397 will only look at the controller specified by the argument in form of an
1398 absolute filepath or a link, e.g.
1399 .IR /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.2 .
1400
1401 .TP
1402 .BR \-Y ", " \-\-export
1403 When used with
1404 .B \-\-detail , \-\-detail-platform
1405 or
1406 .BR \-\-examine ,
1407 output will be formatted as
1408 .B key=value
1409 pairs for easy import into the environment.
1410
1411 .TP
1412 .BR \-E ", " \-\-examine
1413 Print contents of the metadata stored on the named device(s).
1414 Note the contrast between
1415 .B \-\-examine
1416 and
1417 .BR \-\-detail .
1418 .B \-\-examine
1419 applies to devices which are components of an array, while
1420 .B \-\-detail
1421 applies to a whole array which is currently active.
1422 .TP
1423 .B \-\-sparc2.2
1424 If an array was created on a SPARC machine with a 2.2 Linux kernel
1425 patched with RAID support, the superblock will have been created
1426 incorrectly, or at least incompatibly with 2.4 and later kernels.
1427 Using the
1428 .B \-\-sparc2.2
1429 flag with
1430 .B \-\-examine
1431 will fix the superblock before displaying it. If this appears to do
1432 the right thing, then the array can be successfully assembled using
1433 .BR "\-\-assemble \-\-update=sparc2.2" .
1434
1435 .TP
1436 .BR \-X ", " \-\-examine\-bitmap
1437 Report information about a bitmap file.
1438 The argument is either an external bitmap file or an array component
1439 in case of an internal bitmap. Note that running this on an array
1440 device (e.g.
1441 .BR /dev/md0 )
1442 does not report the bitmap for that array.
1443
1444 .TP
1445 .B \-\-examine\-badblocks
1446 List the bad-blocks recorded for the device, if a bad-blocks list has
1447 been configured. Currently only
1448 .B 1.x
1449 metadata supports bad-blocks lists.
1450
1451 .TP
1452 .BI \-\-dump= directory
1453 .TP
1454 .BI \-\-restore= directory
1455 Save metadata from lists devices, or restore metadata to listed devices.
1456
1457 .TP
1458 .BR \-R ", " \-\-run
1459 start a partially assembled array. If
1460 .B \-\-assemble
1461 did not find enough devices to fully start the array, it might leaving
1462 it partially assembled. If you wish, you can then use
1463 .B \-\-run
1464 to start the array in degraded mode.
1465
1466 .TP
1467 .BR \-S ", " \-\-stop
1468 deactivate array, releasing all resources.
1469
1470 .TP
1471 .BR \-o ", " \-\-readonly
1472 mark array as readonly.
1473
1474 .TP
1475 .BR \-w ", " \-\-readwrite
1476 mark array as readwrite.
1477
1478 .TP
1479 .B \-\-zero\-superblock
1480 If the device contains a valid md superblock, the block is
1481 overwritten with zeros. With
1482 .B \-\-force
1483 the block where the superblock would be is overwritten even if it
1484 doesn't appear to be valid.
1485
1486 .TP
1487 .B \-\-kill\-subarray=
1488 If the device is a container and the argument to \-\-kill\-subarray
1489 specifies an inactive subarray in the container, then the subarray is
1490 deleted. Deleting all subarrays will leave an 'empty-container' or
1491 spare superblock on the drives. See \-\-zero\-superblock for completely
1492 removing a superblock. Note that some formats depend on the subarray
1493 index for generating a UUID, this command will fail if it would change
1494 the UUID of an active subarray.
1495
1496 .TP
1497 .B \-\-update\-subarray=
1498 If the device is a container and the argument to \-\-update\-subarray
1499 specifies a subarray in the container, then attempt to update the given
1500 superblock field in the subarray. See below in
1501 .B MISC MODE
1502 for details.
1503
1504 .TP
1505 .BR \-t ", " \-\-test
1506 When used with
1507 .BR \-\-detail ,
1508 the exit status of
1509 .I mdadm
1510 is set to reflect the status of the device. See below in
1511 .B MISC MODE
1512 for details.
1513
1514 .TP
1515 .BR \-W ", " \-\-wait
1516 For each md device given, wait for any resync, recovery, or reshape
1517 activity to finish before returning.
1518 .I mdadm
1519 will return with success if it actually waited for every device
1520 listed, otherwise it will return failure.
1521
1522 .TP
1523 .BR \-\-wait\-clean
1524 For each md device given, or each device in /proc/mdstat if
1525 .B \-\-scan
1526 is given, arrange for the array to be marked clean as soon as possible.
1527 .I mdadm
1528 will return with success if the array uses external metadata and we
1529 successfully waited. For native arrays this returns immediately as the
1530 kernel handles dirty-clean transitions at shutdown. No action is taken
1531 if safe-mode handling is disabled.
1532
1533 .SH For Incremental Assembly mode:
1534 .TP
1535 .BR \-\-rebuild\-map ", " \-r
1536 Rebuild the map file
1537 .RB ( {MAP_PATH} )
1538 that
1539 .I mdadm
1540 uses to help track which arrays are currently being assembled.
1541
1542 .TP
1543 .BR \-\-run ", " \-R
1544 Run any array assembled as soon as a minimal number of devices are
1545 available, rather than waiting until all expected devices are present.
1546
1547 .TP
1548 .BR \-\-scan ", " \-s
1549 Only meaningful with
1550 .B \-R
1551 this will scan the
1552 .B map
1553 file for arrays that are being incrementally assembled and will try to
1554 start any that are not already started. If any such array is listed
1555 in
1556 .B mdadm.conf
1557 as requiring an external bitmap, that bitmap will be attached first.
1558
1559 .TP
1560 .BR \-\-fail ", " \-f
1561 This allows the hot-plug system to remove devices that have fully disappeared
1562 from the kernel. It will first fail and then remove the device from any
1563 array it belongs to.
1564 The device name given should be a kernel device name such as "sda",
1565 not a name in
1566 .IR /dev .
1567
1568 .TP
1569 .BR \-\-path=
1570 Only used with \-\-fail. The 'path' given will be recorded so that if
1571 a new device appears at the same location it can be automatically
1572 added to the same array. This allows the failed device to be
1573 automatically replaced by a new device without metadata if it appears
1574 at specified path. This option is normally only set by a
1575 .I udev
1576 script.
1577
1578 .SH For Monitor mode:
1579 .TP
1580 .BR \-m ", " \-\-mail
1581 Give a mail address to send alerts to.
1582
1583 .TP
1584 .BR \-p ", " \-\-program ", " \-\-alert
1585 Give a program to be run whenever an event is detected.
1586
1587 .TP
1588 .BR \-y ", " \-\-syslog
1589 Cause all events to be reported through 'syslog'. The messages have
1590 facility of 'daemon' and varying priorities.
1591
1592 .TP
1593 .BR \-d ", " \-\-delay
1594 Give a delay in seconds.
1595 .I mdadm
1596 polls the md arrays and then waits this many seconds before polling
1597 again. The default is 60 seconds. Since 2.6.16, there is no need to
1598 reduce this as the kernel alerts
1599 .I mdadm
1600 immediately when there is any change.
1601
1602 .TP
1603 .BR \-r ", " \-\-increment
1604 Give a percentage increment.
1605 .I mdadm
1606 will generate RebuildNN events with the given percentage increment.
1607
1608 .TP
1609 .BR \-f ", " \-\-daemonise
1610 Tell
1611 .I mdadm
1612 to run as a background daemon if it decides to monitor anything. This
1613 causes it to fork and run in the child, and to disconnect from the
1614 terminal. The process id of the child is written to stdout.
1615 This is useful with
1616 .B \-\-scan
1617 which will only continue monitoring if a mail address or alert program
1618 is found in the config file.
1619
1620 .TP
1621 .BR \-i ", " \-\-pid\-file
1622 When
1623 .I mdadm
1624 is running in daemon mode, write the pid of the daemon process to
1625 the specified file, instead of printing it on standard output.
1626
1627 .TP
1628 .BR \-1 ", " \-\-oneshot
1629 Check arrays only once. This will generate
1630 .B NewArray
1631 events and more significantly
1632 .B DegradedArray
1633 and
1634 .B SparesMissing
1635 events. Running
1636 .in +5
1637 .B " mdadm \-\-monitor \-\-scan \-1"
1638 .in -5
1639 from a cron script will ensure regular notification of any degraded arrays.
1640
1641 .TP
1642 .BR \-t ", " \-\-test
1643 Generate a
1644 .B TestMessage
1645 alert for every array found at startup. This alert gets mailed and
1646 passed to the alert program. This can be used for testing that alert
1647 message do get through successfully.
1648
1649 .TP
1650 .BR \-\-no\-sharing
1651 This inhibits the functionality for moving spares between arrays.
1652 Only one monitoring process started with
1653 .B \-\-scan
1654 but without this flag is allowed, otherwise the two could interfere
1655 with each other.
1656
1657 .SH ASSEMBLE MODE
1658
1659 .HP 12
1660 Usage:
1661 .B mdadm \-\-assemble
1662 .I md-device options-and-component-devices...
1663 .HP 12
1664 Usage:
1665 .B mdadm \-\-assemble \-\-scan
1666 .I md-devices-and-options...
1667 .HP 12
1668 Usage:
1669 .B mdadm \-\-assemble \-\-scan
1670 .I options...
1671
1672 .PP
1673 This usage assembles one or more RAID arrays from pre-existing components.
1674 For each array, mdadm needs to know the md device, the identity of the
1675 array, and a number of component-devices. These can be found in a number of ways.
1676
1677 In the first usage example (without the
1678 .BR \-\-scan )
1679 the first device given is the md device.
1680 In the second usage example, all devices listed are treated as md
1681 devices and assembly is attempted.
1682 In the third (where no devices are listed) all md devices that are
1683 listed in the configuration file are assembled. If no arrays are
1684 described by the configuration file, then any arrays that
1685 can be found on unused devices will be assembled.
1686
1687 If precisely one device is listed, but
1688 .B \-\-scan
1689 is not given, then
1690 .I mdadm
1691 acts as though
1692 .B \-\-scan
1693 was given and identity information is extracted from the configuration file.
1694
1695 The identity can be given with the
1696 .B \-\-uuid
1697 option, the
1698 .B \-\-name
1699 option, or the
1700 .B \-\-super\-minor
1701 option, will be taken from the md-device record in the config file, or
1702 will be taken from the super block of the first component-device
1703 listed on the command line.
1704
1705 Devices can be given on the
1706 .B \-\-assemble
1707 command line or in the config file. Only devices which have an md
1708 superblock which contains the right identity will be considered for
1709 any array.
1710
1711 The config file is only used if explicitly named with
1712 .B \-\-config
1713 or requested with (a possibly implicit)
1714 .BR \-\-scan .
1715 In the later case,
1716 .B /etc/mdadm.conf
1717 or
1718 .B /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf
1719 is used.
1720
1721 If
1722 .B \-\-scan
1723 is not given, then the config file will only be used to find the
1724 identity of md arrays.
1725
1726 Normally the array will be started after it is assembled. However if
1727 .B \-\-scan
1728 is not given and not all expected drives were listed, then the array
1729 is not started (to guard against usage errors). To insist that the
1730 array be started in this case (as may work for RAID1, 4, 5, 6, or 10),
1731 give the
1732 .B \-\-run
1733 flag.
1734
1735 If
1736 .I udev
1737 is active,
1738 .I mdadm
1739 does not create any entries in
1740 .B /dev
1741 but leaves that to
1742 .IR udev .
1743 It does record information in
1744 .B {MAP_PATH}
1745 which will allow
1746 .I udev
1747 to choose the correct name.
1748
1749 If
1750 .I mdadm
1751 detects that udev is not configured, it will create the devices in
1752 .B /dev
1753 itself.
1754
1755 In Linux kernels prior to version 2.6.28 there were two distinctly
1756 different types of md devices that could be created: one that could be
1757 partitioned using standard partitioning tools and one that could not.
1758 Since 2.6.28 that distinction is no longer relevant as both type of
1759 devices can be partitioned.
1760 .I mdadm
1761 will normally create the type that originally could not be partitioned
1762 as it has a well defined major number (9).
1763
1764 Prior to 2.6.28, it is important that mdadm chooses the correct type
1765 of array device to use. This can be controlled with the
1766 .B \-\-auto
1767 option. In particular, a value of "mdp" or "part" or "p" tells mdadm
1768 to use a partitionable device rather than the default.
1769
1770 In the no-udev case, the value given to
1771 .B \-\-auto
1772 can be suffixed by a number. This tells
1773 .I mdadm
1774 to create that number of partition devices rather than the default of 4.
1775
1776 The value given to
1777 .B \-\-auto
1778 can also be given in the configuration file as a word starting
1779 .B auto=
1780 on the ARRAY line for the relevant array.
1781
1782 .SS Auto Assembly
1783 When
1784 .B \-\-assemble
1785 is used with
1786 .B \-\-scan
1787 and no devices are listed,
1788 .I mdadm
1789 will first attempt to assemble all the arrays listed in the config
1790 file.
1791
1792 If no arrays are listed in the config (other than those marked
1793 .BR <ignore> )
1794 it will look through the available devices for possible arrays and
1795 will try to assemble anything that it finds. Arrays which are tagged
1796 as belonging to the given homehost will be assembled and started
1797 normally. Arrays which do not obviously belong to this host are given
1798 names that are expected not to conflict with anything local, and are
1799 started "read-auto" so that nothing is written to any device until the
1800 array is written to. i.e. automatic resync etc is delayed.
1801
1802 If
1803 .I mdadm
1804 finds a consistent set of devices that look like they should comprise
1805 an array, and if the superblock is tagged as belonging to the given
1806 home host, it will automatically choose a device name and try to
1807 assemble the array. If the array uses version-0.90 metadata, then the
1808 .B minor
1809 number as recorded in the superblock is used to create a name in
1810 .B /dev/md/
1811 so for example
1812 .BR /dev/md/3 .
1813 If the array uses version-1 metadata, then the
1814 .B name
1815 from the superblock is used to similarly create a name in
1816 .B /dev/md/
1817 (the name will have any 'host' prefix stripped first).
1818
1819 This behaviour can be modified by the
1820 .I AUTO
1821 line in the
1822 .I mdadm.conf
1823 configuration file. This line can indicate that specific metadata
1824 type should, or should not, be automatically assembled. If an array
1825 is found which is not listed in
1826 .I mdadm.conf
1827 and has a metadata format that is denied by the
1828 .I AUTO
1829 line, then it will not be assembled.
1830 The
1831 .I AUTO
1832 line can also request that all arrays identified as being for this
1833 homehost should be assembled regardless of their metadata type.
1834 See
1835 .IR mdadm.conf (5)
1836 for further details.
1837
1838 Note: Auto assembly cannot be used for assembling and activating some
1839 arrays which are undergoing reshape. In particular as the
1840 .B backup\-file
1841 cannot be given, any reshape which requires a backup-file to continue
1842 cannot be started by auto assembly. An array which is growing to more
1843 devices and has passed the critical section can be assembled using
1844 auto-assembly.
1845
1846 .SH BUILD MODE
1847
1848 .HP 12
1849 Usage:
1850 .B mdadm \-\-build
1851 .I md-device
1852 .BI \-\-chunk= X
1853 .BI \-\-level= Y
1854 .BI \-\-raid\-devices= Z
1855 .I devices
1856
1857 .PP
1858 This usage is similar to
1859 .BR \-\-create .
1860 The difference is that it creates an array without a superblock. With
1861 these arrays there is no difference between initially creating the array and
1862 subsequently assembling the array, except that hopefully there is useful
1863 data there in the second case.
1864
1865 The level may raid0, linear, raid1, raid10, multipath, or faulty, or
1866 one of their synonyms. All devices must be listed and the array will
1867 be started once complete. It will often be appropriate to use
1868 .B \-\-assume\-clean
1869 with levels raid1 or raid10.
1870
1871 .SH CREATE MODE
1872
1873 .HP 12
1874 Usage:
1875 .B mdadm \-\-create
1876 .I md-device
1877 .BI \-\-chunk= X
1878 .BI \-\-level= Y
1879 .br
1880 .BI \-\-raid\-devices= Z
1881 .I devices
1882
1883 .PP
1884 This usage will initialise a new md array, associate some devices with
1885 it, and activate the array.
1886
1887 The named device will normally not exist when
1888 .I "mdadm \-\-create"
1889 is run, but will be created by
1890 .I udev
1891 once the array becomes active.
1892
1893 As devices are added, they are checked to see if they contain RAID
1894 superblocks or filesystems. They are also checked to see if the variance in
1895 device size exceeds 1%.
1896
1897 If any discrepancy is found, the array will not automatically be run, though
1898 the presence of a
1899 .B \-\-run
1900 can override this caution.
1901
1902 To create a "degraded" array in which some devices are missing, simply
1903 give the word "\fBmissing\fP"
1904 in place of a device name. This will cause
1905 .I mdadm
1906 to leave the corresponding slot in the array empty.
1907 For a RAID4 or RAID5 array at most one slot can be
1908 "\fBmissing\fP"; for a RAID6 array at most two slots.
1909 For a RAID1 array, only one real device needs to be given. All of the
1910 others can be
1911 "\fBmissing\fP".
1912
1913 When creating a RAID5 array,
1914 .I mdadm
1915 will automatically create a degraded array with an extra spare drive.
1916 This is because building the spare into a degraded array is in general
1917 faster than resyncing the parity on a non-degraded, but not clean,
1918 array. This feature can be overridden with the
1919 .B \-\-force
1920 option.
1921
1922 When creating an array with version-1 metadata a name for the array is
1923 required.
1924 If this is not given with the
1925 .B \-\-name
1926 option,
1927 .I mdadm
1928 will choose a name based on the last component of the name of the
1929 device being created. So if
1930 .B /dev/md3
1931 is being created, then the name
1932 .B 3
1933 will be chosen.
1934 If
1935 .B /dev/md/home
1936 is being created, then the name
1937 .B home
1938 will be used.
1939
1940 When creating a partition based array, using
1941 .I mdadm
1942 with version-1.x metadata, the partition type should be set to
1943 .B 0xDA
1944 (non fs-data). This type selection allows for greater precision since
1945 using any other [RAID auto-detect (0xFD) or a GNU/Linux partition (0x83)],
1946 might create problems in the event of array recovery through a live cdrom.
1947
1948 A new array will normally get a randomly assigned 128bit UUID which is
1949 very likely to be unique. If you have a specific need, you can choose
1950 a UUID for the array by giving the
1951 .B \-\-uuid=
1952 option. Be warned that creating two arrays with the same UUID is a
1953 recipe for disaster. Also, using
1954 .B \-\-uuid=
1955 when creating a v0.90 array will silently override any
1956 .B \-\-homehost=
1957 setting.
1958 .\"If the
1959 .\".B \-\-size
1960 .\"option is given, it is not necessary to list any component-devices in this command.
1961 .\"They can be added later, before a
1962 .\".B \-\-run.
1963 .\"If no
1964 .\".B \-\-size
1965 .\"is given, the apparent size of the smallest drive given is used.
1966
1967 If the array type supports a write-intent bitmap, and if the devices
1968 in the array exceed 100G is size, an internal write-intent bitmap
1969 will automatically be added unless some other option is explicitly
1970 requested with the
1971 .B \-\-bitmap
1972 option. In any case space for a bitmap will be reserved so that one
1973 can be added layer with
1974 .BR "\-\-grow \-\-bitmap=internal" .
1975
1976 If the metadata type supports it (currently only 1.x metadata), space
1977 will be allocated to store a bad block list. This allows a modest
1978 number of bad blocks to be recorded, allowing the drive to remain in
1979 service while only partially functional.
1980
1981 When creating an array within a
1982 .B CONTAINER
1983 .I mdadm
1984 can be given either the list of devices to use, or simply the name of
1985 the container. The former case gives control over which devices in
1986 the container will be used for the array. The latter case allows
1987 .I mdadm
1988 to automatically choose which devices to use based on how much spare
1989 space is available.
1990
1991 The General Management options that are valid with
1992 .B \-\-create
1993 are:
1994 .TP
1995 .B \-\-run
1996 insist on running the array even if some devices look like they might
1997 be in use.
1998
1999 .TP
2000 .B \-\-readonly
2001 start the array readonly \(em not supported yet.
2002
2003 .SH MANAGE MODE
2004 .HP 12
2005 Usage:
2006 .B mdadm
2007 .I device
2008 .I options... devices...
2009 .PP
2010
2011 This usage will allow individual devices in an array to be failed,
2012 removed or added. It is possible to perform multiple operations with
2013 on command. For example:
2014 .br
2015 .B " mdadm /dev/md0 \-f /dev/hda1 \-r /dev/hda1 \-a /dev/hda1"
2016 .br
2017 will firstly mark
2018 .B /dev/hda1
2019 as faulty in
2020 .B /dev/md0
2021 and will then remove it from the array and finally add it back
2022 in as a spare. However only one md array can be affected by a single
2023 command.
2024
2025 When a device is added to an active array, mdadm checks to see if it
2026 has metadata on it which suggests that it was recently a member of the
2027 array. If it does, it tries to "re\-add" the device. If there have
2028 been no changes since the device was removed, or if the array has a
2029 write-intent bitmap which has recorded whatever changes there were,
2030 then the device will immediately become a full member of the array and
2031 those differences recorded in the bitmap will be resolved.
2032
2033 .SH MISC MODE
2034 .HP 12
2035 Usage:
2036 .B mdadm
2037 .I options ...
2038 .I devices ...
2039 .PP
2040
2041 MISC mode includes a number of distinct operations that
2042 operate on distinct devices. The operations are:
2043 .TP
2044 .B \-\-query
2045 The device is examined to see if it is
2046 (1) an active md array, or
2047 (2) a component of an md array.
2048 The information discovered is reported.
2049
2050 .TP
2051 .B \-\-detail
2052 The device should be an active md device.
2053 .B mdadm
2054 will display a detailed description of the array.
2055 .B \-\-brief
2056 or
2057 .B \-\-scan
2058 will cause the output to be less detailed and the format to be
2059 suitable for inclusion in
2060 .BR mdadm.conf .
2061 The exit status of
2062 .I mdadm
2063 will normally be 0 unless
2064 .I mdadm
2065 failed to get useful information about the device(s); however, if the
2066 .B \-\-test
2067 option is given, then the exit status will be:
2068 .RS
2069 .TP
2070 0
2071 The array is functioning normally.
2072 .TP
2073 1
2074 The array has at least one failed device.
2075 .TP
2076 2
2077 The array has multiple failed devices such that it is unusable.
2078 .TP
2079 4
2080 There was an error while trying to get information about the device.
2081 .RE
2082
2083 .TP
2084 .B \-\-detail\-platform
2085 Print detail of the platform's RAID capabilities (firmware / hardware
2086 topology). If the metadata is specified with
2087 .B \-e
2088 or
2089 .B \-\-metadata=
2090 then the return status will be:
2091 .RS
2092 .TP
2093 0
2094 metadata successfully enumerated its platform components on this system
2095 .TP
2096 1
2097 metadata is platform independent
2098 .TP
2099 2
2100 metadata failed to find its platform components on this system
2101 .RE
2102
2103 .TP
2104 .B \-\-update\-subarray=
2105 If the device is a container and the argument to \-\-update\-subarray
2106 specifies a subarray in the container, then attempt to update the given
2107 superblock field in the subarray. Similar to updating an array in
2108 "assemble" mode, the field to update is selected by
2109 .B \-U
2110 or
2111 .B \-\-update=
2112 option. Currently only
2113 .B name
2114 is supported.
2115
2116 The
2117 .B name
2118 option updates the subarray name in the metadata, it may not affect the
2119 device node name or the device node symlink until the subarray is
2120 re\-assembled. If updating
2121 .B name
2122 would change the UUID of an active subarray this operation is blocked,
2123 and the command will end in an error.
2124
2125 .TP
2126 .B \-\-examine
2127 The device should be a component of an md array.
2128 .I mdadm
2129 will read the md superblock of the device and display the contents.
2130 If
2131 .B \-\-brief
2132 or
2133 .B \-\-scan
2134 is given, then multiple devices that are components of the one array
2135 are grouped together and reported in a single entry suitable
2136 for inclusion in
2137 .BR mdadm.conf .
2138
2139 Having
2140 .B \-\-scan
2141 without listing any devices will cause all devices listed in the
2142 config file to be examined.
2143
2144 .TP
2145 .BI \-\-dump= directory
2146 If the device contains RAID metadata, a file will be created in the
2147 .I directory
2148 and the metadata will be written to it. The file will be the same
2149 size as the device and have the metadata written in the file at the
2150 same locate that it exists in the device. However the file will be "sparse" so
2151 that only those blocks containing metadata will be allocated. The
2152 total space used will be small.
2153
2154 The file name used in the
2155 .I directory
2156 will be the base name of the device. Further if any links appear in
2157 .I /dev/disk/by-id
2158 which point to the device, then hard links to the file will be created
2159 in
2160 .I directory
2161 based on these
2162 .I by-id
2163 names.
2164
2165 Multiple devices can be listed and their metadata will all be stored
2166 in the one directory.
2167
2168 .TP
2169 .BI \-\-restore= directory
2170 This is the reverse of
2171 .BR \-\-dump .
2172 .I mdadm
2173 will locate a file in the directory that has a name appropriate for
2174 the given device and will restore metadata from it. Names that match
2175 .I /dev/disk/by-id
2176 names are preferred, however if two of those refer to different files,
2177 .I mdadm
2178 will not choose between them but will abort the operation.
2179
2180 If a file name is given instead of a
2181 .I directory
2182 then
2183 .I mdadm
2184 will restore from that file to a single device, always provided the
2185 size of the file matches that of the device, and the file contains
2186 valid metadata.
2187 .TP
2188 .B \-\-stop
2189 The devices should be active md arrays which will be deactivated, as
2190 long as they are not currently in use.
2191
2192 .TP
2193 .B \-\-run
2194 This will fully activate a partially assembled md array.
2195
2196 .TP
2197 .B \-\-readonly
2198 This will mark an active array as read-only, providing that it is
2199 not currently being used.
2200
2201 .TP
2202 .B \-\-readwrite
2203 This will change a
2204 .B readonly
2205 array back to being read/write.
2206
2207 .TP
2208 .B \-\-scan
2209 For all operations except
2210 .BR \-\-examine ,
2211 .B \-\-scan
2212 will cause the operation to be applied to all arrays listed in
2213 .BR /proc/mdstat .
2214 For
2215 .BR \-\-examine,
2216 .B \-\-scan
2217 causes all devices listed in the config file to be examined.
2218
2219 .TP
2220 .BR \-b ", " \-\-brief
2221 Be less verbose. This is used with
2222 .B \-\-detail
2223 and
2224 .BR \-\-examine .
2225 Using
2226 .B \-\-brief
2227 with
2228 .B \-\-verbose
2229 gives an intermediate level of verbosity.
2230
2231 .SH MONITOR MODE
2232
2233 .HP 12
2234 Usage:
2235 .B mdadm \-\-monitor
2236 .I options... devices...
2237
2238 .PP
2239 This usage causes
2240 .I mdadm
2241 to periodically poll a number of md arrays and to report on any events
2242 noticed.
2243 .I mdadm
2244 will never exit once it decides that there are arrays to be checked,
2245 so it should normally be run in the background.
2246
2247 As well as reporting events,
2248 .I mdadm
2249 may move a spare drive from one array to another if they are in the
2250 same
2251 .B spare-group
2252 or
2253 .B domain
2254 and if the destination array has a failed drive but no spares.
2255
2256 If any devices are listed on the command line,
2257 .I mdadm
2258 will only monitor those devices. Otherwise all arrays listed in the
2259 configuration file will be monitored. Further, if
2260 .B \-\-scan
2261 is given, then any other md devices that appear in
2262 .B /proc/mdstat
2263 will also be monitored.
2264
2265 The result of monitoring the arrays is the generation of events.
2266 These events are passed to a separate program (if specified) and may
2267 be mailed to a given E-mail address.
2268
2269 When passing events to a program, the program is run once for each event,
2270 and is given 2 or 3 command-line arguments: the first is the
2271 name of the event (see below), the second is the name of the
2272 md device which is affected, and the third is the name of a related
2273 device if relevant (such as a component device that has failed).
2274
2275 If
2276 .B \-\-scan
2277 is given, then a program or an E-mail address must be specified on the
2278 command line or in the config file. If neither are available, then
2279 .I mdadm
2280 will not monitor anything.
2281 Without
2282 .B \-\-scan,
2283 .I mdadm
2284 will continue monitoring as long as something was found to monitor. If
2285 no program or email is given, then each event is reported to
2286 .BR stdout .
2287
2288 The different events are:
2289
2290 .RS 4
2291 .TP
2292 .B DeviceDisappeared
2293 An md array which previously was configured appears to no longer be
2294 configured. (syslog priority: Critical)
2295
2296 If
2297 .I mdadm
2298 was told to monitor an array which is RAID0 or Linear, then it will
2299 report
2300 .B DeviceDisappeared
2301 with the extra information
2302 .BR Wrong-Level .
2303 This is because RAID0 and Linear do not support the device-failed,
2304 hot-spare and resync operations which are monitored.
2305
2306 .TP
2307 .B RebuildStarted
2308 An md array started reconstruction. (syslog priority: Warning)
2309
2310 .TP
2311 .BI Rebuild NN
2312 Where
2313 .I NN
2314 is a two-digit number (ie. 05, 48). This indicates that rebuild
2315 has passed that many percent of the total. The events are generated
2316 with fixed increment since 0. Increment size may be specified with
2317 a commandline option (default is 20). (syslog priority: Warning)
2318
2319 .TP
2320 .B RebuildFinished
2321 An md array that was rebuilding, isn't any more, either because it
2322 finished normally or was aborted. (syslog priority: Warning)
2323
2324 .TP
2325 .B Fail
2326 An active component device of an array has been marked as
2327 faulty. (syslog priority: Critical)
2328
2329 .TP
2330 .B FailSpare
2331 A spare component device which was being rebuilt to replace a faulty
2332 device has failed. (syslog priority: Critical)
2333
2334 .TP
2335 .B SpareActive
2336 A spare component device which was being rebuilt to replace a faulty
2337 device has been successfully rebuilt and has been made active.
2338 (syslog priority: Info)
2339
2340 .TP
2341 .B NewArray
2342 A new md array has been detected in the
2343 .B /proc/mdstat
2344 file. (syslog priority: Info)
2345
2346 .TP
2347 .B DegradedArray
2348 A newly noticed array appears to be degraded. This message is not
2349 generated when
2350 .I mdadm
2351 notices a drive failure which causes degradation, but only when
2352 .I mdadm
2353 notices that an array is degraded when it first sees the array.
2354 (syslog priority: Critical)
2355
2356 .TP
2357 .B MoveSpare
2358 A spare drive has been moved from one array in a
2359 .B spare-group
2360 or
2361 .B domain
2362 to another to allow a failed drive to be replaced.
2363 (syslog priority: Info)
2364
2365 .TP
2366 .B SparesMissing
2367 If
2368 .I mdadm
2369 has been told, via the config file, that an array should have a certain
2370 number of spare devices, and
2371 .I mdadm
2372 detects that it has fewer than this number when it first sees the
2373 array, it will report a
2374 .B SparesMissing
2375 message.
2376 (syslog priority: Warning)
2377
2378 .TP
2379 .B TestMessage
2380 An array was found at startup, and the
2381 .B \-\-test
2382 flag was given.
2383 (syslog priority: Info)
2384 .RE
2385
2386 Only
2387 .B Fail,
2388 .B FailSpare,
2389 .B DegradedArray,
2390 .B SparesMissing
2391 and
2392 .B TestMessage
2393 cause Email to be sent. All events cause the program to be run.
2394 The program is run with two or three arguments: the event
2395 name, the array device and possibly a second device.
2396
2397 Each event has an associated array device (e.g.
2398 .BR /dev/md1 )
2399 and possibly a second device. For
2400 .BR Fail ,
2401 .BR FailSpare ,
2402 and
2403 .B SpareActive
2404 the second device is the relevant component device.
2405 For
2406 .B MoveSpare
2407 the second device is the array that the spare was moved from.
2408
2409 For
2410 .I mdadm
2411 to move spares from one array to another, the different arrays need to
2412 be labeled with the same
2413 .B spare-group
2414 or the spares must be allowed to migrate through matching POLICY domains
2415 in the configuration file. The
2416 .B spare-group
2417 name can be any string; it is only necessary that different spare
2418 groups use different names.
2419
2420 When
2421 .I mdadm
2422 detects that an array in a spare group has fewer active
2423 devices than necessary for the complete array, and has no spare
2424 devices, it will look for another array in the same spare group that
2425 has a full complement of working drive and a spare. It will then
2426 attempt to remove the spare from the second drive and add it to the
2427 first.
2428 If the removal succeeds but the adding fails, then it is added back to
2429 the original array.
2430
2431 If the spare group for a degraded array is not defined,
2432 .I mdadm
2433 will look at the rules of spare migration specified by POLICY lines in
2434 .B mdadm.conf
2435 and then follow similar steps as above if a matching spare is found.
2436
2437 .SH GROW MODE
2438 The GROW mode is used for changing the size or shape of an active
2439 array.
2440 For this to work, the kernel must support the necessary change.
2441 Various types of growth are being added during 2.6 development.
2442
2443 Currently the supported changes include
2444 .IP \(bu 4
2445 change the "size" attribute for RAID1, RAID4, RAID5 and RAID6.
2446 .IP \(bu 4
2447 increase or decrease the "raid\-devices" attribute of RAID0, RAID1, RAID4,
2448 RAID5, and RAID6.
2449 .IP \(bu 4
2450 change the chunk-size and layout of RAID0, RAID4, RAID5 and RAID6.
2451 .IP \(bu 4
2452 convert between RAID1 and RAID5, between RAID5 and RAID6, between
2453 RAID0, RAID4, and RAID5, and between RAID0 and RAID10 (in the near-2 mode).
2454 .IP \(bu 4
2455 add a write-intent bitmap to any array which supports these bitmaps, or
2456 remove a write-intent bitmap from such an array.
2457 .PP
2458
2459 Using GROW on containers is currently supported only for Intel's IMSM
2460 container format. The number of devices in a container can be
2461 increased - which affects all arrays in the container - or an array
2462 in a container can be converted between levels where those levels are
2463 supported by the container, and the conversion is on of those listed
2464 above. Resizing arrays in an IMSM container with
2465 .B "--grow --size"
2466 is not yet supported.
2467
2468 Grow functionality (e.g. expand a number of raid devices) for Intel's
2469 IMSM container format has an experimental status. It is guarded by the
2470 .B MDADM_EXPERIMENTAL
2471 environment variable which must be set to '1' for a GROW command to
2472 succeed.
2473 This is for the following reasons:
2474
2475 .IP 1.
2476 Intel's native IMSM check-pointing is not fully tested yet.
2477 This can causes IMSM incompatibility during the grow process: an array
2478 which is growing cannot roam between Microsoft Windows(R) and Linux
2479 systems.
2480
2481 .IP 2.
2482 Interrupting a grow operation is not recommended, because it
2483 has not been fully tested for Intel's IMSM container format yet.
2484
2485 .PP
2486 Note: Intel's native checkpointing doesn't use
2487 .B --backup-file
2488 option and it is transparent for assembly feature.
2489
2490 .SS SIZE CHANGES
2491 Normally when an array is built the "size" is taken from the smallest
2492 of the drives. If all the small drives in an arrays are, one at a
2493 time, removed and replaced with larger drives, then you could have an
2494 array of large drives with only a small amount used. In this
2495 situation, changing the "size" with "GROW" mode will allow the extra
2496 space to start being used. If the size is increased in this way, a
2497 "resync" process will start to make sure the new parts of the array
2498 are synchronised.
2499
2500 Note that when an array changes size, any filesystem that may be
2501 stored in the array will not automatically grow or shrink to use or
2502 vacate the space. The
2503 filesystem will need to be explicitly told to use the extra space
2504 after growing, or to reduce its size
2505 .B prior
2506 to shrinking the array.
2507
2508 Also the size of an array cannot be changed while it has an active
2509 bitmap. If an array has a bitmap, it must be removed before the size
2510 can be changed. Once the change is complete a new bitmap can be created.
2511
2512 .SS RAID\-DEVICES CHANGES
2513
2514 A RAID1 array can work with any number of devices from 1 upwards
2515 (though 1 is not very useful). There may be times which you want to
2516 increase or decrease the number of active devices. Note that this is
2517 different to hot-add or hot-remove which changes the number of
2518 inactive devices.
2519
2520 When reducing the number of devices in a RAID1 array, the slots which
2521 are to be removed from the array must already be vacant. That is, the
2522 devices which were in those slots must be failed and removed.
2523
2524 When the number of devices is increased, any hot spares that are
2525 present will be activated immediately.
2526
2527 Changing the number of active devices in a RAID5 or RAID6 is much more
2528 effort. Every block in the array will need to be read and written
2529 back to a new location. From 2.6.17, the Linux Kernel is able to
2530 increase the number of devices in a RAID5 safely, including restarting
2531 an interrupted "reshape". From 2.6.31, the Linux Kernel is able to
2532 increase or decrease the number of devices in a RAID5 or RAID6.
2533
2534 From 2.6.35, the Linux Kernel is able to convert a RAID0 in to a RAID4
2535 or RAID5.
2536 .I mdadm
2537 uses this functionality and the ability to add
2538 devices to a RAID4 to allow devices to be added to a RAID0. When
2539 requested to do this,
2540 .I mdadm
2541 will convert the RAID0 to a RAID4, add the necessary disks and make
2542 the reshape happen, and then convert the RAID4 back to RAID0.
2543
2544 When decreasing the number of devices, the size of the array will also
2545 decrease. If there was data in the array, it could get destroyed and
2546 this is not reversible, so you should firstly shrink the filesystem on
2547 the array to fit within the new size. To help prevent accidents,
2548 .I mdadm
2549 requires that the size of the array be decreased first with
2550 .BR "mdadm --grow --array-size" .
2551 This is a reversible change which simply makes the end of the array
2552 inaccessible. The integrity of any data can then be checked before
2553 the non-reversible reduction in the number of devices is request.
2554
2555 When relocating the first few stripes on a RAID5 or RAID6, it is not
2556 possible to keep the data on disk completely consistent and
2557 crash-proof. To provide the required safety, mdadm disables writes to
2558 the array while this "critical section" is reshaped, and takes a
2559 backup of the data that is in that section. For grows, this backup may be
2560 stored in any spare devices that the array has, however it can also be
2561 stored in a separate file specified with the
2562 .B \-\-backup\-file
2563 option, and is required to be specified for shrinks, RAID level
2564 changes and layout changes. If this option is used, and the system
2565 does crash during the critical period, the same file must be passed to
2566 .B \-\-assemble
2567 to restore the backup and reassemble the array. When shrinking rather
2568 than growing the array, the reshape is done from the end towards the
2569 beginning, so the "critical section" is at the end of the reshape.
2570
2571 .SS LEVEL CHANGES
2572
2573 Changing the RAID level of any array happens instantaneously. However
2574 in the RAID5 to RAID6 case this requires a non-standard layout of the
2575 RAID6 data, and in the RAID6 to RAID5 case that non-standard layout is
2576 required before the change can be accomplished. So while the level
2577 change is instant, the accompanying layout change can take quite a
2578 long time. A
2579 .B \-\-backup\-file
2580 is required. If the array is not simultaneously being grown or
2581 shrunk, so that the array size will remain the same - for example,
2582 reshaping a 3-drive RAID5 into a 4-drive RAID6 - the backup file will
2583 be used not just for a "cricital section" but throughout the reshape
2584 operation, as described below under LAYOUT CHANGES.
2585
2586 .SS CHUNK-SIZE AND LAYOUT CHANGES
2587
2588 Changing the chunk-size of layout without also changing the number of
2589 devices as the same time will involve re-writing all blocks in-place.
2590 To ensure against data loss in the case of a crash, a
2591 .B --backup-file
2592 must be provided for these changes. Small sections of the array will
2593 be copied to the backup file while they are being rearranged. This
2594 means that all the data is copied twice, once to the backup and once
2595 to the new layout on the array, so this type of reshape will go very
2596 slowly.
2597
2598 If the reshape is interrupted for any reason, this backup file must be
2599 made available to
2600 .B "mdadm --assemble"
2601 so the array can be reassembled. Consequently the file cannot be
2602 stored on the device being reshaped.
2603
2604
2605 .SS BITMAP CHANGES
2606
2607 A write-intent bitmap can be added to, or removed from, an active
2608 array. Either internal bitmaps, or bitmaps stored in a separate file,
2609 can be added. Note that if you add a bitmap stored in a file which is
2610 in a filesystem that is on the RAID array being affected, the system
2611 will deadlock. The bitmap must be on a separate filesystem.
2612
2613 .SH INCREMENTAL MODE
2614
2615 .HP 12
2616 Usage:
2617 .B mdadm \-\-incremental
2618 .RB [ \-\-run ]
2619 .RB [ \-\-quiet ]
2620 .I component-device
2621 .HP 12
2622 Usage:
2623 .B mdadm \-\-incremental \-\-fail
2624 .I component-device
2625 .HP 12
2626 Usage:
2627 .B mdadm \-\-incremental \-\-rebuild\-map
2628 .HP 12
2629 Usage:
2630 .B mdadm \-\-incremental \-\-run \-\-scan
2631
2632 .PP
2633 This mode is designed to be used in conjunction with a device
2634 discovery system. As devices are found in a system, they can be
2635 passed to
2636 .B "mdadm \-\-incremental"
2637 to be conditionally added to an appropriate array.
2638
2639 Conversely, it can also be used with the
2640 .B \-\-fail
2641 flag to do just the opposite and find whatever array a particular device
2642 is part of and remove the device from that array.
2643
2644 If the device passed is a
2645 .B CONTAINER
2646 device created by a previous call to
2647 .IR mdadm ,
2648 then rather than trying to add that device to an array, all the arrays
2649 described by the metadata of the container will be started.
2650
2651 .I mdadm
2652 performs a number of tests to determine if the device is part of an
2653 array, and which array it should be part of. If an appropriate array
2654 is found, or can be created,
2655 .I mdadm
2656 adds the device to the array and conditionally starts the array.
2657
2658 Note that
2659 .I mdadm
2660 will normally only add devices to an array which were previously working
2661 (active or spare) parts of that array. The support for automatic
2662 inclusion of a new drive as a spare in some array requires
2663 a configuration through POLICY in config file.
2664
2665 The tests that
2666 .I mdadm
2667 makes are as follow:
2668 .IP +
2669 Is the device permitted by
2670 .BR mdadm.conf ?
2671 That is, is it listed in a
2672 .B DEVICES
2673 line in that file. If
2674 .B DEVICES
2675 is absent then the default it to allow any device. Similar if
2676 .B DEVICES
2677 contains the special word
2678 .B partitions
2679 then any device is allowed. Otherwise the device name given to
2680 .I mdadm
2681 must match one of the names or patterns in a
2682 .B DEVICES
2683 line.
2684
2685 .IP +
2686 Does the device have a valid md superblock? If a specific metadata
2687 version is requested with
2688 .B \-\-metadata
2689 or
2690 .B \-e
2691 then only that style of metadata is accepted, otherwise
2692 .I mdadm
2693 finds any known version of metadata. If no
2694 .I md
2695 metadata is found, the device may be still added to an array
2696 as a spare if POLICY allows.
2697
2698 .ig
2699 .IP +
2700 Does the metadata match an expected array?
2701 The metadata can match in two ways. Either there is an array listed
2702 in
2703 .B mdadm.conf
2704 which identifies the array (either by UUID, by name, by device list,
2705 or by minor-number), or the array was created with a
2706 .B homehost
2707 specified and that
2708 .B homehost
2709 matches the one in
2710 .B mdadm.conf
2711 or on the command line.
2712 If
2713 .I mdadm
2714 is not able to positively identify the array as belonging to the
2715 current host, the device will be rejected.
2716 ..
2717
2718 .PP
2719 .I mdadm
2720 keeps a list of arrays that it has partially assembled in
2721 .BR {MAP_PATH} .
2722 If no array exists which matches
2723 the metadata on the new device,
2724 .I mdadm
2725 must choose a device name and unit number. It does this based on any
2726 name given in
2727 .B mdadm.conf
2728 or any name information stored in the metadata. If this name
2729 suggests a unit number, that number will be used, otherwise a free
2730 unit number will be chosen. Normally
2731 .I mdadm
2732 will prefer to create a partitionable array, however if the
2733 .B CREATE
2734 line in
2735 .B mdadm.conf
2736 suggests that a non-partitionable array is preferred, that will be
2737 honoured.
2738
2739 If the array is not found in the config file and its metadata does not
2740 identify it as belonging to the "homehost", then
2741 .I mdadm
2742 will choose a name for the array which is certain not to conflict with
2743 any array which does belong to this host. It does this be adding an
2744 underscore and a small number to the name preferred by the metadata.
2745
2746 Once an appropriate array is found or created and the device is added,
2747 .I mdadm
2748 must decide if the array is ready to be started. It will
2749 normally compare the number of available (non-spare) devices to the
2750 number of devices that the metadata suggests need to be active. If
2751 there are at least that many, the array will be started. This means
2752 that if any devices are missing the array will not be restarted.
2753
2754 As an alternative,
2755 .B \-\-run
2756 may be passed to
2757 .I mdadm
2758 in which case the array will be run as soon as there are enough
2759 devices present for the data to be accessible. For a RAID1, that
2760 means one device will start the array. For a clean RAID5, the array
2761 will be started as soon as all but one drive is present.
2762
2763 Note that neither of these approaches is really ideal. If it can
2764 be known that all device discovery has completed, then
2765 .br
2766 .B " mdadm \-IRs"
2767 .br
2768 can be run which will try to start all arrays that are being
2769 incrementally assembled. They are started in "read-auto" mode in
2770 which they are read-only until the first write request. This means
2771 that no metadata updates are made and no attempt at resync or recovery
2772 happens. Further devices that are found before the first write can
2773 still be added safely.
2774
2775 .SH ENVIRONMENT
2776 This section describes environment variables that affect how mdadm
2777 operates.
2778
2779 .TP
2780 .B MDADM_NO_MDMON
2781 Setting this value to 1 will prevent mdadm from automatically launching
2782 mdmon. This variable is intended primarily for debugging mdadm/mdmon.
2783
2784 .TP
2785 .B MDADM_NO_UDEV
2786 Normally,
2787 .I mdadm
2788 does not create any device nodes in /dev, but leaves that task to
2789 .IR udev .
2790 If
2791 .I udev
2792 appears not to be configured, or if this environment variable is set
2793 to '1', the
2794 .I mdadm
2795 will create and devices that are needed.
2796
2797 .TP
2798 .B IMSM_NO_PLATFORM
2799 A key value of IMSM metadata is that it allows interoperability with
2800 boot ROMs on Intel platforms, and with other major operating systems.
2801 Consequently,
2802 .I mdadm
2803 will only allow an IMSM array to be created or modified if detects
2804 that it is running on an Intel platform which supports IMSM, and
2805 supports the particular configuration of IMSM that is being requested
2806 (some functionality requires newer OROM support).
2807
2808 These checks can be suppressed by setting IMSM_NO_PLATFORM=1 in the
2809 environment. This can be useful for testing or for disaster
2810 recovery. You should be aware that interoperability may be
2811 compromised by setting this value.
2812 .SH EXAMPLES
2813
2814 .B " mdadm \-\-query /dev/name-of-device"
2815 .br
2816 This will find out if a given device is a RAID array, or is part of
2817 one, and will provide brief information about the device.
2818
2819 .B " mdadm \-\-assemble \-\-scan"
2820 .br
2821 This will assemble and start all arrays listed in the standard config
2822 file. This command will typically go in a system startup file.
2823
2824 .B " mdadm \-\-stop \-\-scan"
2825 .br
2826 This will shut down all arrays that can be shut down (i.e. are not
2827 currently in use). This will typically go in a system shutdown script.
2828
2829 .B " mdadm \-\-follow \-\-scan \-\-delay=120"
2830 .br
2831 If (and only if) there is an Email address or program given in the
2832 standard config file, then
2833 monitor the status of all arrays listed in that file by
2834 polling them ever 2 minutes.
2835
2836 .B " mdadm \-\-create /dev/md0 \-\-level=1 \-\-raid\-devices=2 /dev/hd[ac]1"
2837 .br
2838 Create /dev/md0 as a RAID1 array consisting of /dev/hda1 and /dev/hdc1.
2839
2840 .br
2841 .B " echo 'DEVICE /dev/hd*[0\-9] /dev/sd*[0\-9]' > mdadm.conf"
2842 .br
2843 .B " mdadm \-\-detail \-\-scan >> mdadm.conf"
2844 .br
2845 This will create a prototype config file that describes currently
2846 active arrays that are known to be made from partitions of IDE or SCSI drives.
2847 This file should be reviewed before being used as it may
2848 contain unwanted detail.
2849
2850 .B " echo 'DEVICE /dev/hd[a\-z] /dev/sd*[a\-z]' > mdadm.conf"
2851 .br
2852 .B " mdadm \-\-examine \-\-scan \-\-config=mdadm.conf >> mdadm.conf"
2853 .br
2854 This will find arrays which could be assembled from existing IDE and
2855 SCSI whole drives (not partitions), and store the information in the
2856 format of a config file.
2857 This file is very likely to contain unwanted detail, particularly
2858 the
2859 .B devices=
2860 entries. It should be reviewed and edited before being used as an
2861 actual config file.
2862
2863 .B " mdadm \-\-examine \-\-brief \-\-scan \-\-config=partitions"
2864 .br
2865 .B " mdadm \-Ebsc partitions"
2866 .br
2867 Create a list of devices by reading
2868 .BR /proc/partitions ,
2869 scan these for RAID superblocks, and printout a brief listing of all
2870 that were found.
2871
2872 .B " mdadm \-Ac partitions \-m 0 /dev/md0"
2873 .br
2874 Scan all partitions and devices listed in
2875 .BR /proc/partitions
2876 and assemble
2877 .B /dev/md0
2878 out of all such devices with a RAID superblock with a minor number of 0.
2879
2880 .B " mdadm \-\-monitor \-\-scan \-\-daemonise > /run/mdadm/mon.pid"
2881 .br
2882 If config file contains a mail address or alert program, run mdadm in
2883 the background in monitor mode monitoring all md devices. Also write
2884 pid of mdadm daemon to
2885 .BR /run/mdadm/mon.pid .
2886
2887 .B " mdadm \-Iq /dev/somedevice"
2888 .br
2889 Try to incorporate newly discovered device into some array as
2890 appropriate.
2891
2892 .B " mdadm \-\-incremental \-\-rebuild\-map \-\-run \-\-scan"
2893 .br
2894 Rebuild the array map from any current arrays, and then start any that
2895 can be started.
2896
2897 .B " mdadm /dev/md4 --fail detached --remove detached"
2898 .br
2899 Any devices which are components of /dev/md4 will be marked as faulty
2900 and then remove from the array.
2901
2902 .B " mdadm --grow /dev/md4 --level=6 --backup-file=/root/backup-md4"
2903 .br
2904 The array
2905 .B /dev/md4
2906 which is currently a RAID5 array will be converted to RAID6. There
2907 should normally already be a spare drive attached to the array as a
2908 RAID6 needs one more drive than a matching RAID5.
2909
2910 .B " mdadm --create /dev/md/ddf --metadata=ddf --raid-disks 6 /dev/sd[a-f]"
2911 .br
2912 Create a DDF array over 6 devices.
2913
2914 .B " mdadm --create /dev/md/home -n3 -l5 -z 30000000 /dev/md/ddf"
2915 .br
2916 Create a RAID5 array over any 3 devices in the given DDF set. Use
2917 only 30 gigabytes of each device.
2918
2919 .B " mdadm -A /dev/md/ddf1 /dev/sd[a-f]"
2920 .br
2921 Assemble a pre-exist ddf array.
2922
2923 .B " mdadm -I /dev/md/ddf1"
2924 .br
2925 Assemble all arrays contained in the ddf array, assigning names as
2926 appropriate.
2927
2928 .B " mdadm \-\-create \-\-help"
2929 .br
2930 Provide help about the Create mode.
2931
2932 .B " mdadm \-\-config \-\-help"
2933 .br
2934 Provide help about the format of the config file.
2935
2936 .B " mdadm \-\-help"
2937 .br
2938 Provide general help.
2939
2940 .SH FILES
2941
2942 .SS /proc/mdstat
2943
2944 If you're using the
2945 .B /proc
2946 filesystem,
2947 .B /proc/mdstat
2948 lists all active md devices with information about them.
2949 .I mdadm
2950 uses this to find arrays when
2951 .B \-\-scan
2952 is given in Misc mode, and to monitor array reconstruction
2953 on Monitor mode.
2954
2955 .SS /etc/mdadm.conf
2956
2957 The config file lists which devices may be scanned to see if
2958 they contain MD super block, and gives identifying information
2959 (e.g. UUID) about known MD arrays. See
2960 .BR mdadm.conf (5)
2961 for more details.
2962
2963 .SS {MAP_PATH}
2964 When
2965 .B \-\-incremental
2966 mode is used, this file gets a list of arrays currently being created.
2967
2968 .SH DEVICE NAMES
2969
2970 .I mdadm
2971 understand two sorts of names for array devices.
2972
2973 The first is the so-called 'standard' format name, which matches the
2974 names used by the kernel and which appear in
2975 .IR /proc/mdstat .
2976
2977 The second sort can be freely chosen, but must reside in
2978 .IR /dev/md/ .
2979 When giving a device name to
2980 .I mdadm
2981 to create or assemble an array, either full path name such as
2982 .I /dev/md0
2983 or
2984 .I /dev/md/home
2985 can be given, or just the suffix of the second sort of name, such as
2986 .I home
2987 can be given.
2988
2989 When
2990 .I mdadm
2991 chooses device names during auto-assembly or incremental assembly, it
2992 will sometimes add a small sequence number to the end of the name to
2993 avoid conflicted between multiple arrays that have the same name. If
2994 .I mdadm
2995 can reasonably determine that the array really is meant for this host,
2996 either by a hostname in the metadata, or by the presence of the array
2997 in
2998 .BR mdadm.conf ,
2999 then it will leave off the suffix if possible.
3000 Also if the homehost is specified as
3001 .B <ignore>
3002 .I mdadm
3003 will only use a suffix if a different array of the same name already
3004 exists or is listed in the config file.
3005
3006 The standard names for non-partitioned arrays (the only sort of md
3007 array available in 2.4 and earlier) are of the form
3008 .IP
3009 .RB /dev/md NN
3010 .PP
3011 where NN is a number.
3012 The standard names for partitionable arrays (as available from 2.6
3013 onwards) are of the form:
3014 .IP
3015 .RB /dev/md_d NN
3016 .PP
3017 Partition numbers should be indicated by adding "pMM" to these, thus "/dev/md/d1p2".
3018 .PP
3019 From kernel version 2.6.28 the "non-partitioned array" can actually
3020 be partitioned. So the "md_d\fBNN\fP"
3021 names are no longer needed, and
3022 partitions such as "/dev/md\fBNN\fPp\fBXX\fp"
3023 are possible.
3024 .PP
3025 From kernel version 2.6.29 standard names can be non-numeric following
3026 the form:
3027 .IP
3028 .RB /dev/md_ XXX
3029 .PP
3030 where
3031 .B XXX
3032 is any string. These names are supported by
3033 .I mdadm
3034 since version 3.3 provided they are enabled in
3035 .IR mdadm.conf .
3036
3037 .SH NOTE
3038 .I mdadm
3039 was previously known as
3040 .IR mdctl .
3041
3042 .SH SEE ALSO
3043 For further information on mdadm usage, MD and the various levels of
3044 RAID, see:
3045 .IP
3046 .B http://raid.wiki.kernel.org/
3047 .PP
3048 (based upon Jakob \(/Ostergaard's Software\-RAID.HOWTO)
3049 .PP
3050 The latest version of
3051 .I mdadm
3052 should always be available from
3053 .IP
3054 .B http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/raid/mdadm/
3055 .PP
3056 Related man pages:
3057 .PP
3058 .IR mdmon (8),
3059 .IR mdadm.conf (5),
3060 .IR md (4).