Re: SLES 9 SP3 and mdadm 2.6.1 (via rpm)

[Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>]

Neil Brown wrote:
> On Tuesday June 12, T_Wolf@gmx.net wrote:
>   
>> Hello everyone.
>>
>> I've got a SLES9 SP3 running and I've been quite happy with it so far.
>>
>> Recently, I've created a 4 disk spanning RAID-5 on our company
>> server. Runs quite nice and we're happy with that too. I created
>> that RAID using the SLES mdadm (1.4 I believe) package. 
>>
>> After discovering that there is a much newer mdadm out here (2.6.1),
>> I decided to upgrade. It went just fine. Raid still running at 120
>> MB/sec. 
>>
>> After adding a disk to the raid, which went fine as well...... BUT:
>>
>> The added disk /dev/sda1 shows up in /proc/mdstat, but does not have
>> the "spare (s)" flag. 
>>
>> Plus... the --grow doesn't work...
>>
>> I get the: mdadm: /dev/md0: Cannot get array details from sysfs
>> error which has been discussed before. Can it be that this is caused
>> by the 2.6.5-7.2xx Kernel? Any ideas? 
>>     
>
> Yes.  All of your issues are caused by using a 2.6.5 based kernel.
> However even upgrading to SLES10 would not get you raid5-grow.  That
> came a little later.  You would need to compile a mainline kernel or
> wait for SLES11.

I have to think that if features require a later kernel version that a 
warning message would be appropriate. I'm always leary about trying a 
new mdadm version with a vendor kernel unless it's a minor bugfix problem.

-- 
bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
  CTO TMR Associates, Inc
  Doing interesting things with small computers since 1979