Bug#388172: mkinitramfs indirectly invokes mdadm -Escpartitions; results can cause system to not boot

[maximilian attems <maks@sternwelten.at>]

reassign 388172 mdadm
forcemerge 386315 388172
stop

On Mon, Sep 18, 2006 at 07:42:09PM -0400, Colin Wetherbee wrote:
> Package: initramfs-tools
> Version: 0.79
> 
> The mkinitramfs script invokes the mdadm hook in 
> /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/.  The hook, in turn, invokes the mdadm 
> script called mkconf, located at /usr/share/mdadm/mkconf.
> 
> The mkconf script calls `mdadm -Escpartitions`, which can produce 
> incorrect results in certain situations.  These incorrect results, 
> incorporated into an initramfs that needs to mount RAID, could cause the 
> system to not boot.  See Debian bug #386315 for more information.

thanks for the notification, but don't submit duplicate bug report.
 
> If you're short on time, scroll down to my addendum to that bug report 
> from Sat, 09 Sep 2006 14:32:31 -0400.  It shows the output of `mdadm 
> -Escpartitions` with two /dev/md0 devices and no /dev/md2 device.

that is clearly an mdadm bug, so reassigning and merging.
 
> My work-around was to run mkinitramfs with -k, which tells mkinitramfs 
> to keep the temporary files.  Then, I changed the mdadm.conf in the 
> temporary directory to the correct configuration and recreated the 
> initramfs image by following the cpio and gzip steps near the end of the 
> mkinitramfs script.
> 
> This is certainly not something a novice would be able to do, so I 
> advise finding an alternative to `mdadm -Escpartitions` soon.

sure the mdadm maintainer will work on this.
 
> Colin

-- 
maks