Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756734Ab0BROMu (ORCPT ); Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:12:50 -0500 Received: from mail.elliptictech.com ([209.217.122.41]:34679 "EHLO emergent.ellipticsemi.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753509Ab0BROMs (ORCPT ); Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:12:48 -0500 Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:12:30 -0500 From: Nick Bowler To: Goswin von Brederlow Cc: david@lang.hm, Kyle Moffett , Rudy Zijlstra , Neil Brown , "Mr. James W. Laferriere" , Bill Davidsen , Volker Armin Hemmann , Michael Evans , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-raid@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Linux mdadm superblock question. Message-ID: <20100218141230.GA26473@emergent.ellipticsemi.com> Mail-Followup-To: Goswin von Brederlow , david@lang.hm, Kyle Moffett , Rudy Zijlstra , Neil Brown , "Mr. James W. Laferriere" , Bill Davidsen , Volker Armin Hemmann , Michael Evans , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-raid@vger.kernel.org References: <201002141940.35716.volkerarmin@googlemail.com> <4B7AD35E.7000405@tmr.com> <20100217130103.3ca65ef3@notabene.brown> <4B7BB927.5000305@grumpydevil.homelinux.org> <20100217181016.GA14983@emergent.ellipticsemi.com> <87sk8z9q0h.fsf@frosties.localdomain> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87sk8z9q0h.fsf@frosties.localdomain> Organization: Elliptic Technologies Inc. User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1781 Lines: 38 On 04:33 Thu 18 Feb , Goswin von Brederlow wrote: > Nick Bowler writes: > > > On 09:41 Wed 17 Feb , david@lang.hm wrote: > >> however for people who run systems that are known ahead of time and > >> static (and who build their own kernels instead of just relying on the > >> distro default kernel), all of this is unnessesary complication, which > >> leaves more room for problems to creep in. > > > > Such people can easily construct an initramfs containing busybox and > > mdadm with a shell script hardcoded to mount their root fs and run > > switch_root. It's a ~10 minute jobbie that only needs to be done once. > > Except when mdadm, cryptsetup, lvm change you need to update it. > Esspecially when you set up a new system that might have newer > metadata. I meant "once per system". One typically doesn't _need_ to update the mdadm in the initramfs, as long as it's capable of assembling the root array. > Also at least Debian doesn't (yet) support a common initramfs for their > kernel packaging. You either build a kernel without need for one or you > have a per kernel initramfs that is automatically build and updated > whenever anything in the initrmafs changes. Not often, but still too > often, the initramfs then doesn't work. The scenario was when users configure and build their own kernel. These users are presumably capable of using grub's "initrd" command or the CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE kernel option. -- Nick Bowler, Elliptic Technologies (http://www.elliptictech.com/) -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/