.\" the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
.\" (at your option) any later version.
.\" See file COPYING in distribution for details.
-.TH MDADM 8 "" v4.0
+.TH MDADM 8 "" v4.1-rc2
.SH NAME
mdadm \- manage MD devices
.I aka
restores the apparent size of the array to be whatever the real
amount of available space is.
+Clustered arrays do not support this parameter yet.
+
.TP
.BR \-c ", " \-\-chunk=
Specify chunk size of kilobytes. The default when creating an
This option configures the fine details of data layout for RAID5, RAID6,
and RAID10 arrays, and controls the failure modes for
.IR faulty .
+It can also be used for working around a kernel bug with RAID0, but generally
+doesn't need to be used explicitly.
The layout of the RAID5 parity block can be one of
.BR left\-asymmetric ,
"clear" or "none" will remove any pending or periodic failure modes,
and "flush" will clear any persistent faults.
-Finally, the layout options for RAID10 are one of 'n', 'o' or 'f' followed
+The layout options for RAID10 are one of 'n', 'o' or 'f' followed
by a small number. The default is 'n2'. The supported options are:
.I 'n'
number (e.g. it is perfectly legal to have an 'n2' layout for an array
with an odd number of devices).
+A bug introduced in Linux 3.14 means that RAID0 arrays
+.B "with devices of differing sizes"
+started using a different layout. This could lead to
+data corruption. Since Linux 5.4 (and various stable releases that received
+backports), the kernel will not accept such an array unless
+a layout is explictly set. It can be set to
+.RB ' original '
+or
+.RB ' alternate '.
+When creating a new array,
+.I mdadm
+will select
+.RB ' original '
+by default, so the layout does not normally need to be set.
+An array created for either
+.RB ' original '
+or
+.RB ' alternate '
+will not be recognized by an (unpatched) kernel prior to 5.4. To create
+a RAID0 array with devices of differing sizes that can be used on an
+older kernel, you can set the layout to
+.RB ' dangerous '.
+This will use whichever layout the running kernel supports, so the data
+on the array may become corrupt when changing kernel from pre-3.14 to a
+later kernel.
+
When an array is converted between RAID5 and RAID6 an intermediate
RAID6 layout is used in which the second parity block (Q) is always on
the last device. To convert a RAID5 to RAID6 and leave it in this new
Start the array
.B read only
rather than read-write as normal. No writes will be allowed to the
-array, and no resync, recovery, or reshape will be started.
+array, and no resync, recovery, or reshape will be started. It works with
+Create, Assemble, Manage and Misc mode.
.TP
.BR \-a ", " "\-\-auto{=yes,md,mdp,part,p}{NN}"
The
.B byteorder
option allows arrays to be moved between machines with different
-byte-order.
+byte-order, such as from a big-endian machine like a Sparc or some
+MIPS machines, to a little-endian x86_64 machine.
When assembling such an array for the first time after a move, giving
.B "\-\-update=byteorder"
will cause
.TP
.BR \-\-add-journal
-Recreate journal for RAID-4/5/6 array that lost a journal device. In the
-current implementation, this command cannot add a journal to an array
-that had a failed journal. To avoid interrupting on-going write opertions,
+Add journal to an existing array, or recreate journal for RAID-4/5/6 array
+that lost a journal device. To avoid interrupting on-going write opertions,
.B \-\-add-journal
only works for array in Read-Only state.
the block where the superblock would be is overwritten even if it
doesn't appear to be valid.
+.B Note:
+Be careful to call \-\-zero\-superblock with clustered raid, make sure
+array isn't used or assembled in other cluster node before execute it.
+
.TP
.B \-\-kill\-subarray=
If the device is a container and the argument to \-\-kill\-subarray
can be added later with
.BR "\-\-grow \-\-bitmap=internal" .
-If the metadata type supports it (currently only 1.x metadata), space
-will be allocated to store a bad block list. This allows a modest
+If the metadata type supports it (currently only 1.x and IMSM metadata),
+space will be allocated to store a bad block list. This allows a modest
number of bad blocks to be recorded, allowing the drive to remain in
service while only partially functional.
.TP
.B \-\-readonly
-start the array readonly \(em not supported yet.
+start the array in readonly mode.
.SH MANAGE MODE
.HP 12
.B "--grow --size"
is not yet supported.
-Grow functionality (e.g. expand a number of raid devices) for Intel's
-IMSM container format has an experimental status. It is guarded by the
-.B MDADM_EXPERIMENTAL
-environment variable which must be set to '1' for a GROW command to
-succeed.
-This is for the following reasons:
-
-.IP 1.
-Intel's native IMSM check-pointing is not fully tested yet.
-This can causes IMSM incompatibility during the grow process: an array
-which is growing cannot roam between Microsoft Windows(R) and Linux
-systems.
-
-.IP 2.
-Interrupting a grow operation is not recommended, because it
-has not been fully tested for Intel's IMSM container format yet.
-
.PP
-Note: Intel's native checkpointing doesn't use
+Notes:
+.IP \(bu 4
+Intel's native checkpointing doesn't use
.B --backup-file
option and it is transparent for assembly feature.
+.IP \(bu 4
+Roaming between Windows(R) and Linux systems for IMSM metadata is not
+supported during grow process.
.SS SIZE CHANGES
Normally when an array is built the "size" is taken from the smallest
bitmap. If an array has a bitmap, it must be removed before the size
can be changed. Once the change is complete a new bitmap can be created.
+.PP
+Note:
+.B "--grow --size"
+is not yet supported for external file bitmap.
+
.SS RAID\-DEVICES CHANGES
A RAID1 array can work with any number of devices from 1 upwards
usually provided by a
.I udev
rules mentioning
-.BR ${DEVLINKS} .
+.BR $env{DEVLINKS} .
.IP +
Does the device have a valid md superblock? If a specific metadata