Intrepid Call for Testing: Booting Degraded RAID

From the Ubuntu Server Team…

Ubuntu Intrepid is racing toward Beta Freeze, scheduled for 25 September 2008.

I’ve been working hard on getting software RAID to work a bit better on the Ubuntu Server.  I’d appreciate any testing assistance the Ubuntu Community can offer.

This work focused on 3 main areas..

1. Enhancing the initramfs to allow booting on a degraded RAID.  The user can now specify that preference in one of several ways:
   • permanently in a configuration file, see: dpkg-reconfigure mdadm
   • as a kernel boot parameter, bootdegraded=true
   • interactively in the initramfs shell, Do you want to boot degraded [y/N]:

2. Enhancing grub to install multiple MBRs, one actively sync’d disk in a mirror
   • in the installer, grub-installer
   • and in a running os, grub-install

3. Adding a question to the Ubuntu Server installer, when it detects that you have installed / or /boot onto a RAID device to prompt the user for their desired behavior, booting degraded or not

Ubuntu Intrepid Alpha 6 will be released in a few days (18 September 2008) containing all of this new functionality, and I would appreciate any assistance testing those server ISO’s!  Once they are built, you can download them from:

• http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/intrepid/alpha-6

File any bugs you find against grub, grub-installer, initramfs-tools, or mdadm, and subscribe kirkland to them.

Cheers,

ustin