The problem with being the mdadm maintainer is that it
doesn’t make any friends but potentially quite a lot of enemies.
Even though it’s actually very unlikely that a new
mdadm version causes data loss (mdadm is
only the remote control into the kernel), people seem to exhibit
unexpected reactions when their 500Gb RAID5 array containing
everything doesn’t want to start anymore (Hi Lars!). In
such a case, don’t panic, don’t do anything without understanding
the implications, and consider asking for help.
That said, I would appreciate if you guys helped me test the
latest mdadm releases a bit more thoroughly before the
package is frozen for good. I do extensive tests myself, but as
Murphy would be able to predict, the problem only ever occur on
other people’s machines, and I’d much rather fix them before
etch than after.
The easiest way to help is by adding my package repository
(i386/amd64) to your
sources.list file, and configuring the APT pins
appropriately:
# cat <<_eof >> /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://debian.madduck.net/repo sid main
_eof
# cat <<_eof >> /etc/apt/preferences
Package: *
Pin: release a=sid, release o=madduck
Pin-Priority: 50
Package: mdadm
Pin: release a=sid, release o=madduck
Pin-Priority: 600
_eof
# apt-get update; apt-get upgrade
Alternatively, you can just download the package for i386_ or amd64_.
If you’re running sarge and are willing to test,
that would be great! I’ve prepared backports, which you can use
like so (note how you need backported debconf and
lsb-base packages too, which are to be found on
backports.org;
see also further down for direct links):
# cat <<_eof >> /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://debian.madduck.net/repo sarge-backports main
## unless you have backports already enabled:
deb http://www.backports.org/debian sarge-backports main
_eof
# cat <<_eof >> /etc/apt/preferences
Package: *
Pin: release a=sarge-backports, release o=madduck
Pin-Priority: 50
Package: mdadm
Pin: release a=sarge-backports, release o=madduck
Pin-Priority: 600
Package: debconf
Pin: release a=sarge-backports
Pin-Priority: 600
Package: lsb-base
Pin: release a=sarge-backports
Pin-Priority: 600
_eof
# apt-get update; apt-get upgrade
The mdadm backport can also be directly downloaded
for
i386_ or
amd64_, the needed debconf and
lsb-base
reside in the backports.org
archive.
Much appreciated!
NP: Barclay James Harvest / Gone to Earth
