Gfilui

Problem:

When I boot my Ubuntu 16.04 (Server) box. I'm dropped to a Busybox V1.22.1 (initramfs) prompt I receive a message “mdadm: Duplicate MD device names in conf file where found.”

Good to know details:

• I saved all my data off to another device as I was making changes to
  my raid arrays, so I'm not worried about losing data.


• This problem occurred when I was making raid changes. I had removed
  my main md raid 5 array which were on sdc, sdd, and sde.


• My server boots to md1 and md0 is my swap file, both of which are
  spanned devices on sda and sdb.


• I was trying to move my /home directory from a spanned drive. My
  ultimate goal here is to move /, /home, and swap to a sdd drive.


• I tried reinstalling Ubuntu but I hit a wall with that (I think it
  has to do with the Gigabyte 970A-DS3P FX motherboard , basically I
  can't boot to a Ubuntu live usb).


• My server doesn't have a CD/DVD/Blue-Ray drive (hence using the usb
  drive).

Error message:

...
Begin: Running /scripts/local-block ... mdadm: Devices UUID-7c2dfe28-c4b7-8646-c114-3a6e9b415836 and UUID--7c2dfe28-c4b7-8646-c114-3a6e9b415836 have the same name: /dev/md/0
mdadm: Duplicate MD device names in conf file were found.
done.
done.
Gave up waiting for root device. Common problems:
 - Boot args (cat /proc/cmdline)
 -Check rootdelay= (did the system wait long enough?)
 - Check root= (did the system wait for the right device?)
 - Missing modules (cat /proc/modules; ls /dev)
ALERT! UUID=b5705e19-a3a3-4c70-9a1b-a86221e389ba

Temporary solution:

I found my mdadm.conf file has extra lines:

# definitions of existing MD arrays
ARRAY /dev/md/0 metadata=1.2 UUID=7c2dfe28:c4b78646:c1143a6e:9b415836 name=bane:0
ARRAY /dev/md/1 metadata=1.2 UUID=5bb24cc9:32f1540c:91119814:4b2597de name=bane:1
ARRAY /dev/md/2 metadata=1.2 UUID=3f089bd1:89b220f0:44a12b9a:6aa183a5 name=bane:2

# This file was auto-generated on Sun, 11 Feb 2018 23:08:06 -0500
# by mkconf $Id$
ARRAY /dev/md/2 metadata=1.2 name=bane:2 UUID=3f089bd1:89b220f0:44a12b9a:6aa183a5
ARRAY /dev/md/0 metadata=1.2 name=bane:0 UUID=7c2dfe28:c4b78646:c1143a6e:9b415836
ARRAY /dev/md/1 metadata=1.2 name=bane:1 UUID=5bb24cc9:32f1540c:91119814:4b2597de
ARRAY /dev/md3 metadata=1.2 name=bane:3 UUID=b8b0bdd6:be5fa734:8bc27641:57722ae3

I found I can get past this by issuing the following commands:

head -23 mdadm.conf > c.c
mv c.c mdadm.conf
mdadm -q --assemble --scan --run
exit

The system this comes up.

Additional steps that didn’t seem to work:

• I copied away the /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf file and removed the extra
  lines as I had when using BusyBox.


• Rebooted


• Server again boots to Busybox with the same messages.


• When I implement my temporary solution as detailed above and check mdadm.conf, the offending duplicate lines are NOT there.

What am I missing here? Does Ubuntu pull the mdadm.conf information from somewhere else when booting?

Thank you

I found the answer I was looking for on this:

update-initramfs -u -v

I rebooted and the server came back up without dropping to Busybox/intramfs.