• NeilBrown's avatar
    md: refine interpretation of "hold_active == UNTIL_IOCTL". · 1d23f178
    NeilBrown authored
    We like md devices to disappear when they really are not needed.
    However it is not possible to tell from the current state whether it
    is needed or not.  We can only tell from recent history of changes.
    
    In particular immediately after we create an md device it looks very
    similar to immediately after we have finished with it.
    
    So we always preserve a newly created md device until something
    significant happens.  This state is stored in 'hold_active'.
    
    The normal case is to keep it until an ioctl happens, as that will
    normally either activate it, or explicitly de-activate it.  If it
    doesn't then it was probably created by mistake and it is now time to
    get rid of it.
    
    We can also modify an array via sysfs (instead of via ioctl) and we
    currently treat any change via sysfs like an ioctl as a sign that if
    it now isn't more active, it should be destroyed.
    However this is not appropriate as changes made via sysfs are more
    gradual so we should look for a more definitive change.
    
    So this patch only clears 'hold_active' from UNTIL_IOCTL to clear when
    the array_state is changed via sysfs.  Other changes via sysfs
    are ignored.
    Signed-off-by: default avatarNeilBrown <neilb@suse.de>
    1d23f178
md.c 213 KB