RHBA-2007:0290 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated mdadm packages that address various bugs are now available.

Description

The mdadm package is used to create, manage, and monitor Linux MD (software
RAID) devices. As such, it provides similar functionality to the raidtools
package. However, mdadm is a single program, and it can perform almost all
functions without a configuration file, though a configuration file can be
used to help with some common tasks.

A number of issues were identified with the 1.6.0 version of
mdadm. These issues were corrected by updating to the 1.12.0 version, or
through individual bug fixes. The corrected issues include:

• mdadm could not handle array members that were greater than 2 TB
• mdadm did not assemble stacked arrays at bootup
• it was impossible to specify the parity algorithm for a RAID 5 array

Users of mdadm should upgrade to these updated packages, which resolve
these issues.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via Red Hat Network. To use Red Hat Network,
launch the Red Hat Update Agent with the following command:

up2date

This will start an interactive process that will result in the appropriate
RPMs being upgraded on your system.

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 4 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 4 s390
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 4 ppc

Fixes

• BZ - 150784 - mdadm display strange message on boot: super-minor once, super-minor=1 ignored.
• BZ - 154561 - mdadm can't handle >2TB array members
• BZ - 171355 - mdadm doesn't assemble stacked arrays at bootup
• BZ - 199033 - Unable to specify parity

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)