[systemd-devel] Need help with a systemd/mdadm interaction.

[Tollef Fog Heen]

]] Dax Kelson 

> On Nov 13, 2013 8:03 AM, "Lennart Poettering" <lennart at poettering.net>
> wrote:
> >
> > I also have the suspicion that the best strategy for handling degraded
> > arrays is to timeout and not assemble them but rather put the system in
> > a state where the admin has to become active. Auto-assembling degraded
> > arrays has the feel of taping over issues. If the admin chooses to
> > boot-up with degraded disks then that's ok, but I am pretty sure this is
> > something the admin should explicitly decide.
> 
> As an experienced admin, I disagree with this. If I've gone to the effort
> to setup a RAID volume obviously I value high availability.

That's not obvious.  You might value data integrity.  You might value
the ability to have file systems larger than a single disk which has
some resilence against single- or double disk failures.

The problem with just continuing with a degraded RAID is for those who
run without monitoring turned on: How is the admin to know that the
system's RAID is degraded?  (Think simple home server without working
outgoing email for mdadm, no monitoring, no desktop style login where
you can pop up a notification.)

Sadly, this means that us experienced admins have to flip the defaults
because we have working email from mdadm and monitoring and alerts and
we would rather the volume be available and degraded than not available
at all.

-- 
Tollef Fog Heen
UNIX is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are