Bug 16965

Summary:	update request: mdadm 3.3.4
Product:	Mageia	Reporter:	Thomas Backlund <tmb>
Component:	RPM Packages	Assignee:	QA Team <qa-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED	QA Contact:
Severity:	normal
Priority:	Normal	CC:	davidwhodgins, lewyssmith, sysadmin-bugs
Version:	5	Keywords:	validated_update
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:	advisory mga5-32-ok MGA5-64-OK
Source RPM:	mdadm	CVE:
Status comment:

Description Thomas Backlund 2015-10-14 21:07:02 CEST

Advisory:
This mdadm maintenance update fixes handling of disks with IMSM metadata,
and various other minor issues.

In mdadm-3.3 a change was made to how IMSM (Intel Matrix Storage Manager)
metadata was handled. Previously an IMSM array would only be assembled
if it was attached to an IMSM controller.

In 3.3 this was relaxed as there are circumstances where the controller is
not properly detected. Unfortunately this has negative consequences which
have only just come to light.

If you have an IMSM RAID1 configured and then disable RAID in the BIOS, the
metadata will remain on the devices. If you then install some other OS on one
device and then install Linux on the other, Linux might eventually start
noticing the IMSM metadata (depending a bit on whether mdadm is included in
the initramfs) and might start up the RAID1. This could copy one device over
the other, thus trashing one of the installations.

Note, in Mageia 5 we are using dmraid instead of mdadm for IMSM by default, thereby mitigating this issue.

References:
http://git.neil.brown.name/git?p=mdadm.git;a=blob_plain;f=ANNOUNCE-3.3.3
http://git.neil.brown.name/git?p=mdadm.git;a=blob_plain;f=ANNOUNCE-3.3.4

SRPM:
mdadm-3.3.4-1.mga5.src.rpm

i586:
mdadm-3.3.4-1.mga5.i586.rpm

x86_64:
mdadm-3.3.4-1.mga5.x86_64.rpm

Reproducible: 

Steps to Reproduce:

Dave Hodgins 2015-10-15 22:52:19 CEST

CC: (none) => davidwhodgins
Whiteboard: (none) => advisory

Comment 1 Lewis Smith 2015-10-27 14:34:41 CET

'Testing' MGA5 x64 real hardware.

All I have been able to do is:
- Install mdadm from normal repos: mdadm-3.3.2-3.mga5
- Apply the update: mdadm-3.3.4-1.mga5
which went smoothly. At least the 'mdadm' console command responded sensibly.

In the absence of a more serious test, I am OK'ing this *only* because the package update process itself causes no grief.
OTOH tmb (I think) said that this update has been in use for some time operationally.

CC: (none) => lewyssmith
Whiteboard: advisory => advisory MGA5-64-OK

Comment 2 claire robinson 2015-11-02 15:01:14 CET

Testing complete mga5 32

Similar testing to Lewis.

# mdadm --help # displays help

# mdadm --detail --scan
# echo $?
0

Keywords: (none) => validated_update
Whiteboard: advisory MGA5-64-OK => advisory mga5-32-ok MGA5-64-OK
CC: (none) => sysadmin-bugs

Comment 3 Mageia Robot 2015-11-02 21:22:13 CET

An update for this issue has been pushed to Mageia Updates repository.

http://advisories.mageia.org/MGAA-2015-0166.html

Status: NEW => RESOLVED
Resolution: (none) => FIXED