Comment 0 for bug 8653

Package: mdadm
Version: 1.7.0-1
Severity: grave

When upgrading mdadm package, postinst script
owerwrites /etc/default/mdadm conffile with
values stored in debconf cache. Ie, any changes
made in that file will be lost after upgrade,
wich, together the mess with AUTOSTART variable
changing it's meaning in every of several
previous releases, when on had to tweak the
value after every upgrade, with good probability
makes a system with raid arrays unbootable
(thus severity of the bug).

As it was pointed out, debconf database is
only a cache for configuration questions,
and should NOT be used to STORE the config
info, which, if needed, should be retrieved
from actual config files (/etc/default/mdadm
in this case) during upgrade.

And when we're at it, both init scripts are
trying to load md module unconditionally.
It will be better if mdadm-raid initscript
will probe for md driver inside the
 if [ $AUTOSTART .. ]... fi
block, in "start" case only (as other
parts of the script does nothing anyway),
and mdadm script will not probe for the
md module at all, -- if there's no
/proc/mdstat present at a time when
mdadm monitor is starting (which happens
near the end of boot process), there's
no reason to load the module and start
monitoring.

/mjt

-- System Information
Debian Release: 3.0
Kernel Version: Linux paltus.tls.msk.ru 2.6.7-i686-2 #1 Mon Jul 26 18:54:34 MSD 2004 i686 GNU/Linux

Versions of the packages mdadm depends on:
||/ Name Version Description
+++-==============-==============-============================================
ii debconf 1.4.30.3 Debian configuration management system
ii libc6 2.3.2.ds1-16 GNU C Library: Shared libraries and Timezone
ii makedev 2.3.1-75 Creates device files in /dev