Re: 2.2.10-14 i686 SMP: IDE RAID-5 array hangs on mount
Brendon B wrote: Okay, what about md v.90 in kernel = 2.3.40 or 2.4? I checked 2.3.40 and the old raid is in it. Where can i get a kernel that has new raid that is at least 2.2.14 or better? If you're satisfied with 2.2.14, just get the RAID 0.90 patch at http://people.redhat.com/mingo/raid-2.2.14-B1 I have it up and running on my ABIT dual celeron box now. I am happy. :-) HTH, -Adam P.
RE: 2.2.10-14 i686 SMP: IDE RAID-5 array hangs on mount
Okay, what about md v.90 in kernel = 2.3.40 or 2.4? I checked 2.3.40 and the old raid is in it. Where can i get a kernel that has new raid that is at least 2.2.14 or better? bb -Original Message- From: Peter Samuelson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2000 3:31 AM To: Adam C Powell IV Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; debian-user@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: 2.2.10-14 i686 SMP: IDE RAID-5 array hangs on mount [Adam Powell [EMAIL PROTECTED]] Okay, but the current RAID in 2.2.14 doesn't work now (for SMP), and doesn't work right (if it's being replaced). I guess one could ask, how did this happen? IIRC, Ingo was rewriting RAID during the Linux 2.1 cycle. Somehow it didn't make it into the main tree before Linus declared the (first) feature freeze. The new-style RAID is better than the old in all respects, *but* it requires a new userspace toolset, so it is *not* in any way a drop-in replacement. After 2.2 came out (or maybe shortly before), some people started pushing hard to get RAID 0.90 into the mainstream kernel. But by then it was too late. You see, as bad as it looks to have old, broken RAID in the kernel and new 'n' improved RAID in a patch somewhere, it looks just as bad (from some people's perspective anyway) to force people to upgrade their userspace tools when moving from (say) kernel 2.2.3 to 2.2.4. Similar with knfsd and ISDN. When 2.2.0 shipped, much-improved versions of both knfsd and ISDN were out there, but the diffs were too large to drop them into a kernel that was supposed to be near-stable. Happily, Alan decided that for 2.2.14, since the new knfsd does not require userspace tool upgrades, he could put the new one in. New ISDN didn't get merged until mid-2.3, and that will *not* go in 2.2. It's a release management thing. You just *can't* break your userspace in the middle of a stable kernel, no matter how much it seems to make sense, unless there's a reason as important as, say, security. -bool 'Multiple devices driver support' CONFIG_BLK_DEV_MD +bool 'Unmaintained multiple devices driver support' CONFIG_BLK_DEV_MD Looks good to me. (Not that my opinion is worth anything in this context.) Peter -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
RE: 2.2.10-14 i686 SMP: IDE RAID-5 array hangs on mount
Okay, what about md v.90 in kernel = 2.3.40 or 2.4? I checked 2.3.40 and the old raid is in it. Where can i get a kernel that has new raid that is at least 2.2.14 or better? You can patch (pretty cleanly) 2.2.14 to raid 0.90 support with: ftp://ftp.fi.kernel.org/pub/linux/daemons/raid/raid0145-19990824-2.2.11.gz Corresponding (latest) raidtools v0.90 are: ftp://ftp.fi.kernel.org/pub/linux/daemons/raid/raidtools-19990824-0.90.tar.gz I am using this combination and so far it seems stable. I don't know if there is any kernel support (or patches) for 0.90 in 2.3.x; I wasn't able to find any, anyway. -Jacob
Re: 2.2.10-14 i686 SMP: IDE RAID-5 array hangs on mount
[Adam Powell [EMAIL PROTECTED]] Okay, but the current RAID in 2.2.14 doesn't work now (for SMP), and doesn't work right (if it's being replaced). I guess one could ask, how did this happen? IIRC, Ingo was rewriting RAID during the Linux 2.1 cycle. Somehow it didn't make it into the main tree before Linus declared the (first) feature freeze. The new-style RAID is better than the old in all respects, *but* it requires a new userspace toolset, so it is *not* in any way a drop-in replacement. After 2.2 came out (or maybe shortly before), some people started pushing hard to get RAID 0.90 into the mainstream kernel. But by then it was too late. You see, as bad as it looks to have old, broken RAID in the kernel and new 'n' improved RAID in a patch somewhere, it looks just as bad (from some people's perspective anyway) to force people to upgrade their userspace tools when moving from (say) kernel 2.2.3 to 2.2.4. Similar with knfsd and ISDN. When 2.2.0 shipped, much-improved versions of both knfsd and ISDN were out there, but the diffs were too large to drop them into a kernel that was supposed to be near-stable. Happily, Alan decided that for 2.2.14, since the new knfsd does not require userspace tool upgrades, he could put the new one in. New ISDN didn't get merged until mid-2.3, and that will *not* go in 2.2. It's a release management thing. You just *can't* break your userspace in the middle of a stable kernel, no matter how much it seems to make sense, unless there's a reason as important as, say, security. -bool 'Multiple devices driver support' CONFIG_BLK_DEV_MD +bool 'Unmaintained multiple devices driver support' CONFIG_BLK_DEV_MD Looks good to me. (Not that my opinion is worth anything in this context.) Peter
Re: 2.2.10-14 i686 SMP: IDE RAID-5 array hangs on mount
Khimenko Victor wrote: In [EMAIL PROTECTED] Adam C Powell IV ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: AI Apologies for the delay, I've been having some email trouble. Future followups AI will be a lot quicker. AI Khimenko Victor wrote: In [EMAIL PROTECTED] Adam C Powell IV ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Greetings, I have a RAID-5 array across 10 GB partitions on four 17 GB IDE drives at hda-d, and a RAID-0 array across 5 GB partitions on the same drives, on a dual-Celeron ABIT BP6 motherboard (haven't installed the recent BIOS upgrade). I've built SMP kernels from 2.2.10 and 2.2.13 source with gcc-2.95, and then 2.2.13 and 2.2.14 with gcc-2.7.2.3, all using the standard Debian .config except 686 and SMP (well, approximately the Debian 2.2.13 config for 2.2.14). That is: you are using broken RAID implementation and expect it to work somehow ? AI Uh, there's a broken RAID implementation in a stable kernel? Not exactly broken. More like unmaintained. It works for some peoples but there are LOTS of problems with it :-/ And noone bother to fix them since there are exist version 0.90 :-) For all of these kernels, the machine always hangs while mounting the RAID-5 array. It never hangs while mounting the RAID-0 array, which happens to come before it. And it never hangs under the non-SMP 386 Debian kernel images. Are there any known races which got into 2.2.14? I haven't yet tried 2.2.15-pre, is there any reason to believe it might solve the problem? It will not solve problem. RAID as it is in 2.2.x kernels us unstable and unmaintained. You REALLY should use raid patches. There are some incompatibilities with 2.2.x RAID implementation and latest RAID patches and thus it's not going in 2.2.x but if you need working raid (and you do hot have one) you SHOULD NOT use stock 2.2.x RAID. Use one from http://people.redhat.com/mingo/raid-2.2.14-B1 AI Hmm, I sense a contradiction here: 2.2.x RAID is incompatible with the latest AI RAID patches and so will stay in, but 2.2.x RAID is unstable and unmaintained. AI If you don't mind my asking, what kind of logic motivated that policy? 1. If you are lucky and have working RAID based on stock 2.2.x (for example RAID 0 :-) you should be able to upgrade to 2.2.14 without big hassle. So upgrade to RAID 0.90 in mainstream kernel posponed to 2.4 ... Thanks, I will do that as soon as possible. 2. RAID 0.90 need some changes in some important kernel structures and such changes will affect even users without RAID. RedHat 6.1 includes RAID patches anyway so I'm not sure if 2. still can be considered seriously. Cool, then maybe they'll be in 2.2.15? AI But seriously. So what you're telling me is that I need to back up all of my AI data, install a patched kernel (and Debian raidtools2), and completely wipe and AI reinstall the RAID arrays, right? Are there any tools to translate old RAID AI arrays into new ones? AFAIK you do not need to backup data and reinstall it (I can be wrong here). You should install new RAID tools and accomodate configuration files but actual contents of RAID array do not need to be reinstalled. Thank you, this is very comforting news! I'll back up anyway, but it's very good to know that the old arrays should mount. AI Please seriously consider the attached patch for 2.2.15. It will save a lot of AI time and grief for RAID amateurs like myself. RAID amateurs will use RedHat 6.1 with patched kernel :-) Okay, then RAID amateurs who use any other distro (okay, perhaps SuSE and TurboLinux have the patches...), or RAID amateurs who download the latest stock kernel. When 2.2.15 comes out, should such amateurs be expected to know to wait for RedHat 6.2 (or SuSE whatever)? Thank you very much for the help, I appreciate it very much. But I do still think there needs to be some change in the way RAID is done in the stable kernel. Either it should be patched to use RAID 0.90, or there should be VERY LOUD WARNINGS in many places, including drivers/block/Config.in, Documentation/Configure.help and Documentation/md.txt (and in Debian, in /usr/share/doc/raidtools/DO-NOT-USE), telling people not to expect what's there to work. I cannot tell you how frustrated this has made me over the last three months, when kernel after kernel just failed. I tried different IDE options, I tried different compilers, and each time my RAID array took more than seven hours to ckraid --fix (which was not automatic in Debian potato until about a month ago, so the downtime was often a lot longer), during which /home for my entire research group- including everyone's web pages- was unavailable. After the third or fourth failure, I went to the debian-user mailing list, where the advice given was to just use gcc 2.7.2, which of course did nothing for me, and I asked again and nobody had any clue. I've been enjoying Linux for long enough on a wide enough variety of
Re: 2.2.10-14 i686 SMP: IDE RAID-5 array hangs on mount
1. If you are lucky and have working RAID based on stock 2.2.x (for example RAID 0 :-) you should be able to upgrade to 2.2.14 without big hassle. So upgrade to RAID 0.90 in mainstream kernel posponed to 2.4 ... Thanks, I will do that as soon as possible. 2. RAID 0.90 need some changes in some important kernel structures and such changes will affect even users without RAID. RedHat 6.1 includes RAID patches anyway so I'm not sure if 2. still can be considered seriously. Cool, then maybe they'll be in 2.2.15? Too many people whined. If you use raid use the 0.90 patches. Unfortunately a pile of people don't want raid 0.90 in the standard kernel, which is silly. Alan
Re: 2.2.10-14 i686 SMP: IDE RAID-5 array hangs on mount
In [EMAIL PROTECTED] Adam C Powell IV ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: AI Khimenko Victor wrote: 2. RAID 0.90 need some changes in some important kernel structures and such changes will affect even users without RAID. RedHat 6.1 includes RAID patches anyway so I'm not sure if 2. still can be considered seriously. AI Cool, then maybe they'll be in 2.2.15? Ask Cox, not me :-) Since Cox is RedHat's employee it looks VERY weird to me that RedHat's kernel and official Cox's kernel are two such different beasts. Anyway, as 2.2.15 turned out to be quick bugfix release (AGAIN!) RAID 0.90 will not be integrated. If it'll be integrated in 2.2.x series at all... AI Please seriously consider the attached patch for 2.2.15. It will save a lot of AI time and grief for RAID amateurs like myself. RAID amateurs will use RedHat 6.1 with patched kernel :-) AI Okay, then RAID amateurs who use any other distro (okay, perhaps SuSE and TurboLinux AI have the patches...), or RAID amateurs who download the latest stock kernel. When AI 2.2.15 comes out, should such amateurs be expected to know to wait for RedHat 6.2 (or AI SuSE whatever)? They should wait for Ingo to release RAID 0.90 patch for 2.2.15 I think :-) At least knfsd (not know about RAID) was sheduled for inclusion in 2.2.15 but now when 2.2.15 is quick bug-fix release (AGAIN!) it looks like KNFSD and RAID will be postponed once again :-/ AI Thank you very much for the help, I appreciate it very much. But I do still think AI there needs to be some change in the way RAID is done in the stable kernel. Either it AI should be patched to use RAID 0.90, or there should be VERY LOUD WARNINGS in many AI places, including drivers/block/Config.in, Documentation/Configure.help and AI Documentation/md.txt (and in Debian, in /usr/share/doc/raidtools/DO-NOT-USE), telling AI people not to expect what's there to work. They can expect it to work. And it even works. Sometimes. AI I cannot tell you how frustrated this has made me over the last three months, when AI kernel after kernel just failed. I tried different IDE options, I tried different AI compilers, and each time my RAID array took more than seven hours to ckraid --fix AI (which was not automatic in Debian potato until about a month ago, so the downtime was AI often a lot longer), during which /home for my entire research group- including AI everyone's web pages- was unavailable. After the third or fourth failure, I went to AI the debian-user mailing list, where the advice given was to just use gcc 2.7.2, which AI of course did nothing for me, and I asked again and nobody had any clue. Looks like you just asked in wrong place :-) It's typical situation in fact: there are LOTS of patches floating around. But they will be added in kernel only when they looks good enough. Sometimes conclusion is that it's good stuff and it should be added... in next version of kernel - since there are to many changes to make such a pile of changes suitable for inclusion in stable kernel. Even if for most peoples RAID 0.90 works MUCH better then default RAID from stock linux kernel. AI I've been enjoying Linux for long enough on a wide enough variety of platforms- and AI have had bad enough experiences with NT (really bad, hate it, hate it, hate it!)- that AI switching has not been an option. But the value of the hours and hours of lost time- AI several days in total- made me *very* seriously reconsider this- this has been almost AI as bad as the NT nightmares. It probably would have even been worth the extra price AI of Solaris/Sparc! AI Linux can be one of two things: AI 1. A professional system whose stable kernels just work. AI 2. A hobbyist/geek system which requires patches to make things work, and doesn't AI even say so anywhere in the documentation, one must just know these things. AI My impression has been that Linux aims for #1, but it seems I am wrong, or at the very AI least, the RAID policy has been pure #2. Not at all. It was more like RAID 0.90 looks great but it's not yet clear if improvements are really big enough to add incompatibilities in stable kernel series. Only when it's clear that applaying patch is Good Thing(tm) patch is applied. All other patches (and there are LOTS of them: RAID patches, KNFSD patches, IDE patches, etc) should be VERY rigourously tested before they will be included in linux kernel. ESPECIALLY in stable version. As Linus said I prefer to have a known bug that will eventually get fixed than an ugly solution that will hide it forever. I hope you'll undertood this position. If you call this hobbyist/geek system - be so, swicth to other system. AI If it is about to be fixed, that's great, but for future reference, quality AI control issues like this matter a whole lot to a great many people. Unfortunatelly quality means different things for different peoples :-/ AI I don't expect it to be perfect- we are human after all- but where AI there are
Re: 2.2.10-14 i686 SMP: IDE RAID-5 array hangs on mount
In [EMAIL PROTECTED] Alan Cox ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: 1. If you are lucky and have working RAID based on stock 2.2.x (for example RAID 0 :-) you should be able to upgrade to 2.2.14 without big hassle. So upgrade to RAID 0.90 in mainstream kernel posponed to 2.4 ... Thanks, I will do that as soon as possible. 2. RAID 0.90 need some changes in some important kernel structures and such changes will affect even users without RAID. RedHat 6.1 includes RAID patches anyway so I'm not sure if 2. still can be considered seriously. Cool, then maybe they'll be in 2.2.15? AC Too many people whined. If you use raid use the 0.90 patches. Unfortunately AC a pile of people don't want raid 0.90 in the standard kernel, which is silly. Ok. Is it possible to at least add message somewhere about existance of RAID 0.90 patches ? Not everyone is reading l-k, you know. This way users at least will know about RAID 0.90 existence (URL will not hurt as well) and can try to apply them if stock RAID will fail... P.S. Perhaps Changes file can include list of well-known patches ? That well-known for kernel developers who read l-k regularly but not so well-known for outsiders ? Things like KNFSD patches, RAID 0.90, IDE patches and so on ? They can be not good enough for official kernel just yet but peoples can find them helpfull sometimes... And it's not so easy to find URL even if you are aware of such patch existance :-/
Re: 2.2.10-14 i686 SMP: IDE RAID-5 array hangs on mount
Ask Cox, not me :-) Since Cox is RedHat's employee it looks VERY weird to me that RedHat's kernel and official Cox's kernel are two such different beasts. 2.2.15 and the Red Hat kernel are two different things. They I suspect always will be. The things vendors want make it work now and the main tree needs make it work right are never going to totally overlap They should wait for Ingo to release RAID 0.90 patch for 2.2.15 I think :-) At least knfsd (not know about RAID) was sheduled for inclusion in 2.2.15 but now when 2.2.15 is quick bug-fix release (AGAIN!) it looks like KNFSD and RAID will be postponed once again :-/ I think all the important NFS stuff is already in 2.2.14. Alan
Re: 2.2.10-14 i686 SMP: IDE RAID-5 array hangs on mount
On Mon, 24 Jan 2000, Alan Cox wrote: Too many people whined. If you use raid use the 0.90 patches. Unfortunately a pile of people don't want raid 0.90 in the standard kernel, which is silly. Pfft. The current in-kernel code is junk compaired to the 0.90. I think the most correct course of action remaining is to remove the raid code all togeather. Better to have nothing at all then to have junk. I'll submit a patch any anyone would like.
