Hi, Thanks for the insightful information. I am running ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS (desktop version). As per your suggestion, I have run mdadm -I /dev/md0 from the initramfs and indeed /dev/md1 gets assembled. Your suggestions have definitely started me on the right path. I have done some further googling and apparently the problem I am experiencing is somewhat common in 12.04. I am in the process of modifying some of the init scripts to make my array assemble correctly. I have tried the workaround described here http://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/linux/Ubuntu1204SoftwareRaidFail but it did not solve the problem for me. I will post my solution once it is done. Regards, Jivko Re On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 7:33 PM, NeilBrown <neilb@xxxxxxx> wrote: > On Thu, 18 Oct 2012 09:19:58 -0600 Jivko Sabev <jsabev@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> The mdadm.conf in the initrd image contains the correct devices. I.e. >> the contents of mdadm.conf in initrd are the output of >> >> mdadm --detail --scan >> >> ARRAY /dev/md0 metadata=1.2 name=mercury:0 >> UUID=60ea870e:029dcf99:eaae356e:f1c12085 >> ARRAY /dev/md1 metadata=1.2 name=mercury:1 >> UUID=d89a52ed:0247f2e8:5edf5d09:21e7fa48 >> >> However, the problem remains. That is when booting, the system dumps >> into initramfs shell with the raid array in an inactive state. I have >> to manually stop the array and then reassemble. >> >> mdadm --manage --stop /dev/md1 >> mdadm --assemble /dev/md1 /dev/sde1 /dev/md0 >> >> >> At the point, I am able to continue booting and everything is fine after. >> >> Here are the contents of /proc/mdstat from the initrd shell before >> reassembling the array. >> >> md1 : inactive sde1[2](S) >> 976639672 blocks super 1.2 >> >> md0 : active linear sdb1[0] sdc1[1] >> 976770537 blocks super 1.2 0k rounding > > There are two problems here. > > Firstly, the fact that the array doesn't assemble completely should not cause > the boot to fail. A degraded raid1 is perfectly sufficient for booting. > > What is happening is that the initrd is relying on udev to assemble the array > by passing each new device to "mdadm --incremental $DEVNAME". > This will assemble the array as soon as all devices are present, but not > before. If a device failed before shutdown that will be recorded in the > metadata and "mdadm --incremental" will not wait for it. If it disappears > during reboot, mdadm will still expect it. > > To deal with this issue, the initrd should run > mdadm --incremental --scan --run > > which means "look for all arrays that are being incrementally assembled, and > start them". > This should be called after running "udevadm settle" and before mounting the > root filesystem. > > However fixing this won't fix your problem, it will just change it. > > The udev rules files which is calling "mdadm --incremental" does so > on /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 and /dev/sde1, but apparently not on /dev/md0. > > If at the initrd shell prompt you run > mdadm -I /dev/md0 > > it should finish assembling md1 for you. For some reason udev isn't doing > that. > > Have a look in /lib/udev/rules.d or /etc/udev/rules.d for a file that runs > "mdadm --incremental" or "mdadm -I" and see how it works. > Maybe post it. > > BTW what distro are you using? > > NeilBrown > -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
