From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Wed, 28 Feb 2001 10:42:52 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Wed, 28 Feb 2001 10:42:42 -0500 Received: from ns.virtualhost.dk ([195.184.98.160]:17936 "EHLO virtualhost.dk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Wed, 28 Feb 2001 10:42:31 -0500 Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 16:41:51 +0100 From: Jens Axboe To: "Richard B. Johnson" Cc: Holluby István , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: mke2fs /dev/loop0 Message-ID: <20010228164151.H21518@suse.de> In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: ; from root@chaos.analogic.com on Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 10:31:35AM -0500 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, Feb 28 2001, Richard B. Johnson wrote: > `mke2fs /dev/loop0` requires an additional parameter (file size to > create). Otherwise, it will try to use all the RAM in your system, plus... > > If it worked before, it was because of luck. FYI, this is not the > way to create a ramdisk. Normally you use the loop device to mount > a file as a file-system, i.e., `mount -o loop filename /mnt`. > So, I don't know what you are trying to do except crash your system. This could not be more wrong. mke2fs will query the size of the loop device, and make the correct size file system regardless of whether it's file or block device backed. And it will not try to use all RAM in the system?! This is loop, not a ramdisk. Dirty buffers will be flushed to loop like any other block device in the system, if that doesn't work then we have a mm bug. The previous answer was right -- loop has been broken for quite some time, but use -ac latest on top of 2.4.2 and it should work flawlessly for you. -- Jens Axboe