On Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 11:25 AM NeilBrown [off-list ref] wrote:

On Wed, 22 Mar 2023, Xiao Ni wrote:

quoted

On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 8:08 AM NeilBrown [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

mdopen() will use create_named_array() to ask the kernel to create the
given md array, but only if it is given a number or name.
If it is NOT given a name and is required to choose one itself using
find_free_devnm() it does NOT use create_named_array().

On kernels with CONFIG_BLOCK_LEGACY_AUTOLOAD not set, this can result in
failure to assemble an array.  This can particularly seen when the
"name" of the array begins with a host name different to the name of the
host running the command.

So add the missing call to create_named_array().

Link: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=217074

Hi Neil

I have two questions, hope you can help to understand the function
create_mddev better.

Frist, from the comment7 of the bug you mentioned:

There are two different sorts names.  Note that you almost
acknowledged this by writing "name for my md device node" while the
documentation only talks about names for "md devices", not for "md
device nodes".

There are
1/ there are names in /dev or /dev/md/ (device nodes)
2/ there are names that appear in /proc/mdstat and in /sys/block/ (devices)

Thanks for the clarification. But it looks like it doesn't work like
what you said.
For example:
mdadm -CR /dev/md/root -l0 -n2 /dev/sda /dev/sdc --name=test
cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid0]
md127 : active raid0 sdc[1] sda[0]
      3906764800 blocks super 1.2 512k chunks
cd /sys/block/md127/md/

In /proc/mdstat and /sys/block, they all use md127 rather than the name(root)

Try again with "CREATE names=yes" in /etc/mdadm.conf.

mdadm generally tries to keep:
  - the names in /dev/
  - the names in /dev/md/
  - the names in /proc/mdstat
  - the names stored in the metadata

in sync.  It can only do this when:
 - you enabled "names=yes"
 - you don't confuse it by specifying a device name (/dev/md/root) that
   is different from the metadata names "test".

If you don't have "names=yes" then the name in /proc/mdstat and the name
in /dev/md* will be numeric.  The name in /dev/md/ and the name in the
metadata can be different and will usually be the same.

If you explicitly give a different name with --name= than the device
name then obviously they will be different.  If you then stop the array
and restart with "mdadm -As" or "mdadm -I /dev/sda; mdadm -I /dev/sdb"
then mdadm will create a name in /dev/md/ that matches the name in the
metadata.

Hi Neil

My last email uses non plain text mode. So many people can't see it. I
send this again with plain text mode.

Thanks for your explanation.

It looks like I understand it. In the function create_mddev, it tries
to extract the number and name from dev(device node name) or
name(metadata name). If it doesn't use --name when creating a raid
device, it gets the number and name from dev.

1. If it can get a number, we use the mdNN as the raid name. So the
device node name and raid name are the same(.e.g md0).

2. If it can't get a number and doesn't set 'Create names=yes', it
automatically chooses a number. In this case the device node name and
the raid name are different.

For example:
mdadm -CR /dev/md/root -l0 -n2 /dev/sda /dev/sdc
The device node name is md127, the raid name is root. Because it
doesn't specify --name, so the metadata name is root too.

mdadm -CR /dev/md/root -l0 -n2 /dev/sda /dev/sdc --name=test
The device node name is md127, the raid name is root, the metadata
name is test. When assembling raid device, it'll use md127 as the
device node name too. But the raid name will change to md_test. So
it's not a good command to create the raid device. If you want to
specify the raid name in /dev/md/root, it's better not to use --name.

3. If it can't get a number and sets 'Create names=yes' in mdadm.conf,
it can use the raid name as the device node name.
For example:
mdadm -CR /dev/md/root -l0 -n2 /dev/sda /dev/sdc
The device node name is root, the raid name is root and the metadata
name is root too.

quoted

Before this patch,  it creates a symbol link with the name root rather than test
ll /dev/md/root
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 8 Mar 21 22:35 /dev/md/root -> ../md127

That is what you asked it to do.

quoted

So "test" which is specified by --name looks like it has little usage.

It is stored in the metadata.  You can see it in --examine output.  If
you reassemble the array without specifying a device name, it will use
the name "test".

So we can call it metadata name :)

quoted

By the way, after this patch, the symbol link /dev/md/root can't be
created anymore.
Is it a regression problem?

I cannot reproduce any problem like that.  Please provide a sequence of
steps so that I can try to duplicate it.

In the next email, Mariusz has given the reproduction steps. And it's
another patch that causes the regression.

quoted

Second, are there possibilities that the arguments "dev" and "name" of
function create_mddev
are null at the same time?

No.  For Build or Create, dev is never NULL.  For Assemble and
Incremental, name is never NULL.

quoted

After some tests, I found dev can't be null when creating a raid
device. It can be checked before
calling create_mddev. And we must get a name after creating a raid
device. So when assembling
a raid device, the name must not be null. So the dev and name can't be
null at the same time, right?

Correct.

Thanks for the confirmation. Now there is a comment like this:
"If both name and dev are NULL, we choose a name 'mdXX' or 'mdpXX'".
I'll try to write some patches to optimize the function mddev_create
and those comments.

Best Regards
Xiao