Please test mdadm/experimental

This is an email I just sent to debian-devel:

I have done some major work on mdadm (see PTS) in experimental, which is now at version 2.5.2-1 (not all web pages reflect that yet). I still have not received enough success reports to make me comfortable enough to upload to unstable, so here’s another request for testing (or else etch will ship with 2.4.1).

I am 95% confident that it’s a smooth upgrade, though it helps if you make sure that the output of the script /usr/share/mdadm/mkconf looks okay before you reboot. Come and find me on IRC if you need reconfirmation (see below).

Previously, mdadm required a newer version of initramfs-tools, one which did not exist yet. I have addressed this issue with this version, meaning that you can install it with any initramfs-tools out there, and it will just do what it can do.

Details are available in the online README, which is a little more up to date than the included /usr/share/doc/mdadm/README.experimental.

Please test mdadm 2.5.2-1! and drop me a line if it works, or if it does not! The package is in experimental or available from my repository for i386 or amd64.

Again, do not hesitate to bug me on IRC (#debian-devel/irc.debian.org) if you have questions or need assistance.

Update: Alec Berryman discovered a slight problem when mdadm 2.5.2-1 is used in conjunction with initramfs-tools 0.64 or earlier. Please see this post for details and solutions. The online README has been updated. I don’t think this warrants a new package to be uploaded to the archive, but please correct me if I am wrong.

Update: Alec Berryman helped discover another problem when the root filesystem is on LVM is on RAID. If this is your setup, please do not use mdadm 2.5 at the moment. See #375879.