path: root/ChangeLog

Please see git logs for detailed change log.
This file just contains highlight.

Changes Prior to release 3.3
- Some array reshapes can proceed without needing backup file.
  This is done by changing the 'data_offset' so we never need to write
  any data back over where it was before.  If there is no "head space"
  or "tail space" to allow data_offset to change, the old mechanism
  with a backup file can still be used.
- RAID10 arrays can be reshaped to change the number of devices,
  change the chunk size, or change the layout between 'near'
  and 'offset'.
  This will always change data_offset, and will fail if there is no
  room for data_offset to be moved.
- "--assemble --update=metadata" can convert a 0.90 array to a 1.0 array.
- bad-block-logs are supported (but not heavily tested yet)
- "--assemble --update=revert-reshape" can be used to undo a reshape
  that has just been started but isn't really wanted.  This is very
  new and while it passes basic tests it cannot be guaranteed.
- improved locking between --incremental and --assemble
- uses systemd to run "mdmon" if systemd is configured to do that.
- kernel names of md devices can be non-numeric. e.g. "md_home" rather than
  "md0".  This will probably confuse lots of other tools, so you need to
       echo CREATE names=yes >> /etc/mdadm.conf
  or the feature will not be used.  (you also need a reasonably new kernel).
- "--stop" can be given a kernel name instead of a device name. i.e
     mdadm --stop md4
  will work even if /dev/md4 doesn't exist.
- "--detail --export" has some information about the devices in the array
- --dump and --restore can be used to backup and restore the metadata on an
   array.
- Hot-replace is supported with
     mdadm /dev/mdX --replace /dev/foo
  and
     mdadm /dev/mdX --replace /dev/foo --with /dev/bar
- Config file can be a directory in which case all "*.conf" files are
  read in lexical order.
  Default is to read /etc/mdadm.conf and then /etc/mdadm.conf.d
  Thus
      echo CREATE name=yes > /etc/mdadm.conf.d/names.conf
  will also enable the use of named md devices.

- Lots of improvements to DDF support including adding support for
  RAID10 (thanks Martin Wilck).

Changes Prior to release 3.2.6
  - There are no real stand-out fixes, just lots of little bits and pieces.

Changes Prior to release 3.2.5
  - This release primarily fixes a serious regression in 3.2.4.
    This regression does *not* cause any risk to data.  It simply
    means that adding a device with "--add" would sometime fail
    when it should not.

  - The fix also includes a couple of minor fixes such as making
    the "--layout=preserve" option to "--grow" work again.


Changes Prior to release 3.2.4
"--oneline" log of changes is below.  Some notable ones are:

 - --offroot argument to improve interactions between mdmon and initrd
 - --prefer argument to select which /dev names to display in some
   circumstances.
 - relax restructions on when "--add" will be allowed
 - Fix bug with adding write-intent-bitmap to active array
 - Now defaults to "/run/mdadm" for storing run-time files.

Changes Prior to release 3.2.3
  - The largest single area of change is support for reshape of Intel
    IMSM arrays (OnLine Capacity Explansion and Level Migration).
  - Among other fixes, this now has a better chance of surviving if a
    device fails during reshape.

Changes Prior to release 3.2.2
  - reshaping IMSM (Intel metadata) arrays is no longer 'experimental',
    it should work properly and be largely compatible with IMSM drivers in
    other platforms.
  - --assume-clean can be used with --grow --size to avoid resyncing the
    new part of the array.  This is only support with very new kernels.
  - RAID0 arrays can have chunksize which is not a power of 2.  This has been
    supported in the kernel for a while but is only now supprted by
    mdadm.

  - A new tool 'raid6check' is available which can check a RAID6 array,
    or part of it, and report which device is most inconsistent with the
    others if any stripe is inconsistent.   This is still under development
    and does not have a man page yet.  If anyone tries it out and has any
    questions or experience to report, they would be most welcome on
    linux-raid@vger.kernel.org.

Changes Prior to release 3.2.1
  - policy framework
     Policy can be expressed for moving spare devices between arrays, and
     for how to handle hot-plugged devices.  This policy can be different
     for devices plugged in to different controllers etc.
     This, for example, allows a configuration where when a device is plugged
     in it is immediately included in an md array as a hot spare and
     possibly starts recovery immediately if an array is degraded.

  - some understanding of mbr and gpt paritition tables
     This is primarly to support the new hot-plug support.  If a
     device is plugged in and policy suggests it should have a partition table,
     the partition table will be copied from a suitably similar device, and
     then the partitions will hot-plug and can then be added to md arrays.

  - "--incremental --remove" can remember where a device was removed from
    so if a device gets plugged back in the same place, special policy applies
    to it, allowing it to be included in an array even if a general hotplug
    will not be included.

  - enhanced reshape options, including growing a RAID0 by converting to RAID4,
    restriping, and converting back.  Also convertions between RAID0 and
    RAID10 and between RAID1 and RAID10 are possible (with a suitably recent
    kernel).

  - spare migration for IMSM arrays.
     Spare migration can now work across 'containers' using non-native metadata
     and specifically Intel's IMSM arrays support spare migrations.

  - OLCE and level migration for Intel IMSM arrays.
     OnLine Capacity Expansion and level migration (e.g. RAID0 -> RAID5) is
     supported for Intel Matrix Storage Manager arrays.
     This support is currently 'experimental' for technical reasons.  It can
     be enabled with "export MDADM_EXPERIMENTAL=1"

  - avoid including wayward devices
     If you split a RAID1, mount the two halves as two separate degraded RAID1s,
     and then later bring the two back together, it is possible that the md
     metadata won't properly show that one must over-ride the other.
     mdadm now does extra checking to detect this possibilty and avoid
     potentially corrupting data.

  - remove any possible confusion between similar options.
     e.g. --brief and --bitmap were mapped to 'b' and mdadm wouldn't
     notice if one was used where the other was expected.

  - allow K,M,G suffixes on chunk sizes

Changes Prior to release 3.2
 - By far the most significant change in this release related to the
   management of reshaping arrays.  This code has been substantially
   re-written so that it can work with 'externally managed metadata' -
   Intel's IMSM in particular.  We now support level migration and
   OnLine Capacity Expansion on these arrays.
 - Policy framework.
   Various policy statements can be made in the mdadm.conf to guide
   the behaviour of mdadm, particular with regards to how new devices
   are treated by "mdadm -I".
   Depending on the 'action' associated with a device (identified by
   its 'path') such need devices can be automatically re-added to and
   existing array that they previously fell out off, or automatically
   added as a spare if they appear to contain no data.

 - mdadm now has a limited understanding of partition tables.  This
   allows the policy framework to make decisions about partitioned
   devices as well.

 - --incremental --remove can be told what --path the device was on,
   and this info will be recorded so that another device appearing at
   the same physical location can be preferentially added to the same
   array (provides the spare-same-slot action policy applied to the
   path).

 - A new flags "--invalid-backup" flag is available in --assemble
   mode.  This can be used to re-assemble an array which was stopping
   in the middle of a reshape, and for which the 'backup file' is no
   longer available or is corrupted.  The array may have some
   corruption in it at the point where reshape was up to, but at least
   the rest of the array will become available.


 - Various internal restructuring - more is needed.

Changes Prior to release 3.1.5
  - Fixes for v1.x metadata on big-endian machines.
  - man page improvements
  - Improve '--detail --export' when run on partitions of an md array.
  - Fix regression with removing 'failed' or 'detached' devices.
  - Fixes for "--assemble --force" in various unusual cases.
  - Allow '-Y' to mean --export.  This was documented but not implemented.
  - Various fixed for handling 'ddf' metadata.  This is now more reliable
    but could benefit from more interoperability testing.
  - Correctly list subarrays of a container in "--detail" output.
  - Improve checks on whether the requested number of devices is supported
    by the metadata - both for --create and --grow.
  - Don't remove partitions from a device that is being included in an
    array until we are fully committed to including it.
  - Allow "--assemble --update=no-bitmap" so an array with a corrupt
    bitmap can still be assembled.
  - Don't allow --add to succeed if it looks like a "--re-add" is probably
    wanted, but cannot succeed.  This avoids inadvertently turning
    devices into spares when an array is failed.

Changes Prior to release 3.1.4
  Two fixes related to configs that aren't using udev:
   -    Don't remove md devices which 'standard' names on --stop
   -    Allow dev_open to work on read-only /dev
  And fixed regressions:
   -    Allow --incremental to add spares to an array
   -    Accept --no-degraded as a deprecated option rather than
            throwing an error
   -    Return correct success status when --incrmental assembling
        a container which does not yet have enough devices.
   -    Don't link mdadm with pthreads, only mdmon needs it.
   -    Fix compiler warning due to bad use of snprintf

Changes Prior to release 3.1.3
   -    mapfile now lives in a fixed location which default to
        /dev/.mdadm/map but can be changed at compile time.  This
	location is choses and most distros provide it during early
	boot and preserve it through.  As long a /dev exists and is
	writable, /dev/.mdadm will be created.
	Other files file communication with mdmon live here too.
	This fixes a bug reported by Debian and Gentoo users where
	udev would spin in early-boot.
   -    IMSM and DDF metadata will not be recognised on partitions
        as they should only be used on whole-disks.
   -    Various overflows causes by 2G drives have been addressed.
   -    A subarray of an IMSM contain can now be killed with
        --kill-subarray.  Also subarrays can be renamed with
	--update-subarray
   -    -If (or --incremental --fail) can be used  from udev to
        fail and remove from all arrays a device which has been
	unplugged from the system.  i.e. hot-unplug-support.
   -    "mdadm /dev/mdX --re-add missing" will look for any device
        that looks like it should be a member of /dev/mdX but isn't
	and will automatically --re-add it
   -    Now compile with -Wextra to get extra warnings.
   -    Lots of minor bug fixes, documentation improvements, etcc

Changes Prior to release 3.1.2
   -    The default metadata has change again (sorry about that).
        It is now v1.2 and will hopefully stay that way.  It turned
        out there with boot-block issues with v1.1 which make it
        unsuitable for a default, though in many cases it is still
        suitable to use.
   -    Stopping a container is not permitted when members are still
        active
   -    Add 'homehost' to the valid words for the "AUTO" config file
        line.  When followed by "-all", this causes mdadm to
        auto-assemble any array belonging to this host, but not
        auto-assemble anything else.
   -    Fix some bugs with "--grow --chunksize=" for changing chunksize.
   -    VAR_RUN can be easily changed at compile time just like ALT_RUN.
        This gives distros more flexability in how to manage the
        pid and sock files that mdmon needs.
   -    Various mdmon fixes
   -    Alway make bitmap 4K-aligned if at all possible.
   -    If mdadm.conf lists arrays which have inter-dependencies,
        the previously had to be listed in the "right" order.  Now
        any order should work.
   -    Fix --force assembly of v1.x arrays which are in the process
        of recovering.
   -    Add section on 'scrubbing' to 'md' man page.
   -    Various command-line-option parsing improvements.
   -    ... and lots of other bug fixes.

Changes Prior to release 3.1.1
   -    Multiple fixes for new --grow levels including fixes for
	serious data corruption problems.
   -    Change default metadata to v1.1
   -    Change default chunk size to 512K
   -    Change default bitmap chunk size to 64Meg
   -    When --re-add is used, don't fall back to
	--add if --re-add fails as this can destroy data.

Changes Prior to release 3.1
   -    Support --grow to change the layout of RAID4/5/6
   -    Support --grow to change the chunksize of raid 4/5/6
   -    Support --grow to change level from RAID1 -> RAID5 -> RAID6 and
        back.
   -    Support --grow to reduce the number of devices in RAID4/5/6.
   -    Support restart of these grow options which assembling an array
	which is partially grown.
   -    Assorted tests of this code, and of different RAID6 layouts.

Changes Prior to release 3.0.3
   -    Improvements for creating arrays giving just a name, like 'foo',
	rather than the full '/dev/md/foo'.
   -    Improvements for assembling member arrays of containers.
   -    Improvements to test suite
   -    Add option to change increment for RebuildNN messages reported
	by "mdadm --monitor"
   -    Improvements to mdmon 'hand-over' from initrd to final root.
   -    Handle merging of devices that have left an IMSM array and are
	being re-incorporated.
   -    Add missing space in "--detail --brief" output.

Changes Prior to release 3.0.2
   -    Fix crash when hosthost is not set, as often happens in
	early boot.

Changes Prior to release 3.0.1
   -    Fix various segfaults
   -    Fixed for --examine with containers
   -    Lots of other little fixes.

Changes Prior to release 3.0
   -    Support for externally managed metadata, specifically DDF and IMSM.
   -    Depend on udev to create entries in /dev, rather than creating them
	ourselves.
   -    remove --auto-update-home-hosts
   -    new config file line "auto"
   -    new "<ignore>" and "any" options for "homehost"
   -    numerous bug fixes and minor enhancements.