Re: mdadm 3.1.1: level change won't start

[Neil Brown <neilb@suse.de>]

On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:41:33 +0000
Kristleifur Daðason <kristleifur@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I wish to convert my 3-drive RAID-5 array to a 6-drive RAID-6. I'm on
> Linux 2.6.32.2 and have mdadm version 3.1.1 with the 32-bit-array-size
> patch from here: http://osdir.com/ml/linux-raid/2009-11/msg00534.html
> 
> I have three live drives and three spares added to the array. When I
> initialize the command, mdadm does the initial checks and aborts with
> a "cannot set device shape" without doing anything to the array.
> 
> Following are some md stats and growth command output:
> 
> ___
> 
> $ cat /proc/mdstat
> Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5]
> [raid4] [raid10]
> md_d1 : active raid5 sdd1[6](S) sdc1[5](S) sdb1[4](S) sdf1[1] sde1[0] sdl1[3]
>       2930078720 blocks super 1.1 level 5, 256k chunk, algorithm 2 [3/3] [UUU]
>       bitmap: 1/350 pages [4KB], 2048KB chunk
> 
> $ mdadm --detail --scan
> ARRAY /dev/md/d1 metadata=1.01 spares=3 name=mamma:d1
> UUID=da547022:042a6f68:d5fe251e:5e89f263
> 
> $ mdadm --grow /dev/md_d1 --level=6 --raid-devices=6
> --backup-file=/root/backup.md1_to_r6
> mdadm: metadata format 1.10 unknown, ignored.
> mdadm: metadata format 1.10 unknown, ignored.
> mdadm level of /dev/md_d1 changed to raid6
> mdadm: Need to backup 1024K of critical section..
> mdadm: Cannot set device shape for /dev/md_d1
> mdadm: aborting level change
> ___
> 
> 
> Three questions -
> 
> 1. What does the stuff about "metadata format 1.10 unknown" mean?
> Notice the "super 1.1" vs. "metadata 1.01" vs. "metadata format 1.10"
> disrepancy between mdsat, --detail and --grow output.

The metadata format .. unknown means that your /etc/mdadm.conf contains
something like
       metadata=1.10

> 
> 2. Am I doing something wrong? :)

Not obviously.

> 
> 3. How can I get more info about what is causing the failure to
> initialize the growth?

Look in the kernel logs.  e.g. 
   dmesg | tail -20

immediately after the "mdadm --grow" attempt.

I just tried the same thing and it worked for me.

NeilBrown
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