Public bug reported: http://www.spinics.net/lists/raid/msg40832.html
> when booting, the system dumps > into initramfs shell with the raid array in an inactive state. There are two problems here. Firstly, the fact that the array doesn't assemble completely should not cause the boot to fail. A degraded raid1 is perfectly sufficient for booting. What is happening is that the initrd is relying on udev to assemble the array by passing each new device to "mdadm --incremental $DEVNAME". This will assemble the array as soon as all devices are present, but not before. If a device failed before shutdown that will be recorded in the metadata and "mdadm --incremental" will not wait for it. If it disappears during reboot, mdadm will still expect it. To deal with this issue, the initrd should run mdadm --incremental --scan --run [better: only degrade the required raid, not all !!! ] which means "look for all arrays that are being incrementally assembled, and start them". This should be called after running "udevadm settle" and before mounting the root filesystem. However fixing this won't fix your problem [with a nested array], it will just change it. The udev rules files which is calling "mdadm --incremental" does so on /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 and /dev/sde1, but apparently not on /dev/md0. If at the initrd shell prompt you run mdadm -I /dev/md0 it should finish assembling md1 for you. For some reason udev isn't doing that. Have a look in /lib/udev/rules.d or /etc/udev/rules.d for a file that runs "mdadm --incremental" or "mdadm -I" and see how it works. Maybe post it. BTW what distro are you using? NeilBrown ** Affects: mdadm (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New ** Summary changed: - missing --incremental on array that is part of another arrays (nested) + missing --incremental on array that is part of another array (nested) -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1088464 Title: missing --incremental on array that is part of another array (nested) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mdadm/+bug/1088464/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs