Bug#398312: INITRDSTART='none' doesn't work

[dean gaudet]

On Mon, 13 Nov 2006, martin f krafft wrote:

> severity 398312 important
> tags 398312 unreproducible moreinfo
> thanks
> 
> > even though i have INITRDSTART='none' in my /etc/default/mdadm and rebuilt >
> the initrd, it still goes and does array discovery at boot time.
> 
> piper:/tmp/cdt.d.Ns8889# grep '^INITRD' /etc/default/mdadm
> INITRDSTART='none'
> piper:/tmp/cdt.d.Ns8889# update-initramfs -c -b . -k $(uname -r)
> update-initramfs: Generating ./initrd.img-2.6.18-2-amd64
> W: mdadm: /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf defines no arrays.
> I: mdadm: using configuration file: /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf
> I: mdadm: no MD arrays will be started from the initial ramdisk.
> I: mdadm: use `dpkg-reconfigure --priority=low mdadm` to change this.

try again with VERBOSE=false...

which causes the is_true() in info() to return 1 which causes the set -e 
to terminate the script.

perhaps this bug report should be titled "set -e considered harmful" :)

set -e would be better if it actually caused sh to complain when the
error occured... instead it's the worst of both worlds:  scripts exit
due to programming errors and then you have no idea they exited early.


> > this is marked grave because it can cause dataloss if drives with
> > stale superblocks are put together in an unexpected manner
> > resulting in an array rebuild.  (i.e. same reasoning as #398310)
> 
> Again, I don't see this as a grave bug but human error. I agree that
> mdadm should do something against it, but it's not a grave problem
> every time that it fails to prevent human error.

i dunno, it's not really a human error to not know anything at all about 
the superblocks.

with the default settings of INITRDSTART='all' it's impossible for a
person to stick some old PATA disks (which happen to be part of an old
array) into their box.  because it requires a reboot and then initrd
will make an array and md might start trying to rebuild the disks.  i
can't even stick them in to do --zero-superblock...

unless i change INITRDSTART setting and rebuild initrd.

is it really that hard to start only the root array?  i suppose it is a
challenge on an upgrade... because you don't have the helpful sysfs
features that newer 2.6.x kernels provide for finding dependencies.
blah.

-dean

--- /var/tmp/mdadm.orig	2006-11-13 01:28:46.000000000 -0800
+++ /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/mdadm	2006-11-13 01:51:37.000000000 -0800
@@ -23,14 +23,6 @@
     ;;
 esac
 
-is_true()
-{
-  case "${1:-}" in
-    [Yy]es|[Yy]|1|[Tt]rue|[Tt]) return 0;;
-    *) return 1;
-  esac
-}
-
 write()
 {
   local PREFIX; PREFIX=$1; shift
@@ -39,7 +31,9 @@
 
 info()
 {
-  is_true ${VERBOSE:-false} && write I "$@"
+  if [ "$VERBOSE" = "true" ]; then
+	write I "$@"
+  fi
 }
 
 warn()