linux-kernel - Q: cat /proc/mdstat blocking?

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-Id: <4E3BF809020000A100006CDF@gwsmtp1.uni-regensburg.de>
Date:	Fri, 05 Aug 2011 14:02:49 +0200
From:	"Ulrich Windl" <Ulrich.Windl@...uni-regensburg.de>
To:	<linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Q: cat /proc/mdstat blocking?

Hi,

I thought that /proc/mdstat just displays the current state of the MD RAIDs, not querying them, thus never blocking. Unfortunately I could observer a "cat /proc/mdstat" hanging for several seconds when one of the RAID1 legs was unavailable and multipathd was queueing requests to the leg.

Practically this makes monitoring of the other RAIDs difficult when one bad device is enough to block /proc/mdstat.

Now my question: Does it work as designed (i.e. as intended), or is this not as intended?

As I'm not subcribed to the kernel list, maybe CC: your replies.

Effect was observed in SLES11 SP1 x86_64 with multipathed FC SAN disks (2.6.32.36) on a machine with several CPUs.

Regards,
Ulrich Windl

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/