Re: online fsck

Re: online fsck

[Chris Mason]

On Thu, 2004-04-22 at 09:00, Jure Peèar wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Is it theoretically posible?
> 
> Like, does it need a drastic redesing of reiserfs or just sufficient $$
> directed to the team to be implemented?
> 
> 
> Because i think that reiserfsck --check in 12h + --rebuild-tree in 18h is
> still waaay too much downtime for a 500gb mail server...

Online check is easy, just use lvm or evms to make a snapshot and then
check the snapshot.  Online rebuild tree would be impossible by
definition (since it throws out everything above the leaf level and
rebuilds).

-chris

Re: online fsck

[Jure Pečar]

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 09:34:14 -0400
Chris Mason <mason@suse.com> wrote:

> Online check is easy, just use lvm or evms to make a snapshot and then
> check the snapshot.  Online rebuild tree would be impossible by
> definition (since it throws out everything above the leaf level and
> rebuilds).

Well yes, one can do --check on ro mounted fs.

I was thinking about fixing things up on an active rw filesystem ... where
if something is found that does not look right, it is reported and fixed on
the fly.


What happened here last week ... power went out just for our disk enclosures
... when it came back, everything looked ok and we went back into action ...
however, a couple hours later the box started filling the logs with reiserfs
errors (PAP-5660, PAP-12350, vs-5150, vs-5350, vs-5355, vs-13050, vs-13060,
...) and crashed after about 25min.

So is it theoretically posible to fix stuff like these on the fly?

-- 

Jure Pečar

Re: online fsck

[Chris Dukes]

On Thu, Apr 22, 2004 at 04:24:02PM +0200, Jure Pe??ar wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 09:34:14 -0400
> Chris Mason <mason@suse.com> wrote:
> 
> > Online check is easy, just use lvm or evms to make a snapshot and then
> > check the snapshot.  Online rebuild tree would be impossible by
> > definition (since it throws out everything above the leaf level and
> > rebuilds).
> 
> Well yes, one can do --check on ro mounted fs.
> 
> I was thinking about fixing things up on an active rw filesystem ... where
> if something is found that does not look right, it is reported and fixed on
> the fly.
> 

It is worth mentioning that FreeBSD supposedly has an online in the 
background fsck for UFS2.
I don't know the implementation details as I am busy fighting XF86 4.4
on FreeBSD.

> So is it theoretically posible to fix stuff like these on the fly?
-- 
Chris Dukes
Been there, done that, got the slightly-charred t-shirt. -- Crowder

Re: online fsck

[Nikita Danilov]

Chris Dukes writes:
 > On Thu, Apr 22, 2004 at 04:24:02PM +0200, Jure Pe??ar wrote:
 > > On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 09:34:14 -0400
 > > Chris Mason <mason@suse.com> wrote:
 > > 
 > > > Online check is easy, just use lvm or evms to make a snapshot and then
 > > > check the snapshot.  Online rebuild tree would be impossible by
 > > > definition (since it throws out everything above the leaf level and
 > > > rebuilds).
 > > 
 > > Well yes, one can do --check on ro mounted fs.
 > > 
 > > I was thinking about fixing things up on an active rw filesystem ... where
 > > if something is found that does not look right, it is reported and fixed on
 > > the fly.
 > > 
 > 
 > It is worth mentioning that FreeBSD supposedly has an online in the 
 > background fsck for UFS2.

Wait a second. Assuming that kernel code has no bugs, the only
corruption that may happen when soft-updates are used is leaked disk
space. As I understand it, FreeBSD's background fsck fixes this problem
and only it.

But, under the same assumption, journalled file system needs _no_ fsck
at all.

 > I don't know the implementation details as I am busy fighting XF86 4.4
 > on FreeBSD.
 > 
 > > So is it theoretically posible to fix stuff like these on the fly?
 > -- 
 > Chris Dukes
 > Been there, done that, got the slightly-charred t-shirt. -- Crowder

Nikita.

Re: online fsck

[Marcelo Pacheco]

On Thursday 22 April 2004 12:45, Nikita Danilov wrote:
> Chris Dukes writes:
>  > On Thu, Apr 22, 2004 at 04:24:02PM +0200, Jure Pe??ar wrote:
>  > > On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 09:34:14 -0400
>  > >
>  > > Chris Mason <mason@suse.com> wrote:
>  > > > Online check is easy, just use lvm or evms to make a snapshot and
>  > > > then check the snapshot.  Online rebuild tree would be impossible by
>  > > > definition (since it throws out everything above the leaf level and
>  > > > rebuilds).
>  > >
>  > > Well yes, one can do --check on ro mounted fs.
>  > >
>  > > I was thinking about fixing things up on an active rw filesystem ...
>  > > where if something is found that does not look right, it is reported
>  > > and fixed on the fly.
>  >
>  > It is worth mentioning that FreeBSD supposedly has an online in the
>  > background fsck for UFS2.
>
> Wait a second. Assuming that kernel code has no bugs, the only
> corruption that may happen when soft-updates are used is leaked disk
> space. As I understand it, FreeBSD's background fsck fixes this problem
> and only it.
>
> But, under the same assumption, journalled file system needs _no_ fsck
> at all.
>
>  > I don't know the implementation details as I am busy fighting XF86 4.4
>  > on FreeBSD.
>  >
>  > > So is it theoretically posible to fix stuff like these on the fly?
>  >
>  > --
>  > Chris Dukes
>  > Been there, done that, got the slightly-charred t-shirt. -- Crowder
>
> Nikita.
That's exactly my thought. Wasn't write cache enabled on those disks ? That 
certainly would defeat any journaling filesystem.

Marcelo Pacheco

Re: online fsck

[Chris Dukes]

On Thu, Apr 22, 2004 at 07:45:08PM +0400, Nikita Danilov wrote:
> Chris Dukes writes:
>  > 
>  > It is worth mentioning that FreeBSD supposedly has an online in the 
>  > background fsck for UFS2.
> 
> Wait a second. Assuming that kernel code has no bugs, the only
> corruption that may happen when soft-updates are used is leaked disk
> space. As I understand it, FreeBSD's background fsck fixes this problem
> and only it.

Reading through
http://www.shiningsilence.com/dbsdlog/archives/000212.html
That would appear to be the case.
And current experience indicates that UFS2 does not recover gracefully
when used on a disk that has been in service beyond its life expectancy.
> 
> But, under the same assumption, journalled file system needs _no_ fsck
> at all.

In this age of hot plugging, rough environments, drives that have
write caching turned on no matter how hard folks try to turn it off,
petabytes of spinning storage, and the continuing misunderstanding of 
MTBF, that is becoming an increasingly poor assumption.
Measures to verify that the metadata are sane without making all
of the data unavailable are needed.

Oh well back to fighting X for a project where things don't die
when some important metadata is corrupted, they just cough and sputter
a bit before continuing.
-- 
Chris Dukes
Been there, done that, got the slightly-charred t-shirt. -- Crowder

Re: online fsck

[Hans Reiser]

Chris Mason wrote:

>On Thu, 2004-04-22 at 09:00, Jure Peèar wrote:
>  
>
>>Hi all,
>>
>>Is it theoretically posible?
>>
>>Like, does it need a drastic redesing of reiserfs or just sufficient $$
>>directed to the team to be implemented?
>>
>>
>>Because i think that reiserfsck --check in 12h + --rebuild-tree in 18h is
>>still waaay too much downtime for a 500gb mail server...
>>    
>>
>
>Online check is easy, just use lvm or evms to make a snapshot and then
>check the snapshot. 
>
Requires that users use lvm before discovering the need for fsck, but, 
yes.  What would be ideal would be some support for finding the 
inconsistency on the snapshot, and then fixing it on the real fs using 
the information learned from the snapshot fsck.

> Online rebuild tree would be impossible by
>definition (since it throws out everything above the leaf level and
>rebuilds).
>
>-chris
>
>
>
>
>  
>

Re: online fsck

[Chris Mason]

On Thu, 2004-04-22 at 13:51, Hans Reiser wrote:
> Chris Mason wrote:
> 
> >On Thu, 2004-04-22 at 09:00, Jure Peèar wrote:
> >  
> >
> >>Hi all,
> >>
> >>Is it theoretically posible?
> >>
> >>Like, does it need a drastic redesing of reiserfs or just sufficient $$
> >>directed to the team to be implemented?
> >>
> >>
> >>Because i think that reiserfsck --check in 12h + --rebuild-tree in 18h is
> >>still waaay too much downtime for a 500gb mail server...
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >Online check is easy, just use lvm or evms to make a snapshot and then
> >check the snapshot. 
> >
> Requires that users use lvm before discovering the need for fsck, but, 
> yes.  What would be ideal would be some support for finding the 
> inconsistency on the snapshot, and then fixing it on the real fs using 
> the information learned from the snapshot fsck.

Which should be possible, espeically for corruptions at the leaf
levels.  Things like incorrect i_size, pointers to files that don't
exist, etc.  Corruptions that require a full blow rebuild-tree will be
much harder.

I was wrong to say that an online rebuild-tree would be impossible, but
it certainly does seem tricky.  Basically you could freeze the old tree,
using it for readonly lookups.  Rebuild to new tree in the background,
and verify things you find in the old tree in the new tree (to catch a
file that has been deleted while the FS was mounted but is present in
the old tree).

-chris

Re: online fsck

[Hans Reiser]

Chris Mason wrote:

>On Thu, 2004-04-22 at 13:51, Hans Reiser wrote:
>  
>
>>Chris Mason wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>On Thu, 2004-04-22 at 09:00, Jure Peèar wrote:
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>Hi all,
>>>>
>>>>Is it theoretically posible?
>>>>
>>>>Like, does it need a drastic redesing of reiserfs or just sufficient $$
>>>>directed to the team to be implemented?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Because i think that reiserfsck --check in 12h + --rebuild-tree in 18h is
>>>>still waaay too much downtime for a 500gb mail server...
>>>>   
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>Online check is easy, just use lvm or evms to make a snapshot and then
>>>check the snapshot. 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>Requires that users use lvm before discovering the need for fsck, but, 
>>yes.  What would be ideal would be some support for finding the 
>>inconsistency on the snapshot, and then fixing it on the real fs using 
>>the information learned from the snapshot fsck.
>>    
>>
>
>Which should be possible, espeically for corruptions at the leaf
>levels.  Things like incorrect i_size, pointers to files that don't
>exist, etc.  Corruptions that require a full blow rebuild-tree will be
>much harder.
>
>I was wrong to say that an online rebuild-tree would be impossible, but
>it certainly does seem tricky.  Basically you could freeze the old tree,
>using it for readonly lookups.  Rebuild to new tree in the background,
>and verify things you find in the old tree in the new tree (to catch a
>file that has been deleted while the FS was mounted but is present in
>the old tree).
>
>-chris
>
>
>
>
>  
>
rebuild-tree would likely  be a major engineering effort which would 
require funding from someone who cared enough to pay for it....., 
finding inconsistencies on a snapshot and applying them to a live system 
would be less difficult but still substantive work.

Re: online fsck

[Chris Dukes]

On Thu, Apr 22, 2004 at 10:51:12AM -0700, Hans Reiser wrote:
> Chris Mason wrote:
> >
> >Online check is easy, just use lvm or evms to make a snapshot and then
> >check the snapshot. 
> >
> Requires that users use lvm before discovering the need for fsck, but, 
> yes.  What would be ideal would be some support for finding the 
> inconsistency on the snapshot, and then fixing it on the real fs using 
> the information learned from the snapshot fsck.

Taking a snapshot of the entire FS to fix metadata seems somewhat
expensive.  Any thoughts on intercepting FS activity to locate
metadata that needs to be checked now rather than during the next moment
the fs or disk is idle?

Snapshotting 40G has a pretty small additional cost.  Snapshotting 1TB
is somewhat more expensive.
> 
> >Online rebuild tree would be impossible by
> >definition (since it throws out everything above the leaf level and
> >rebuilds).

Build a new tree and keep the old tree until the new tree is finished?
-- 
Chris Dukes
Been there, done that, got the slightly-charred t-shirt. -- Crowder

Re: online fsck

[daniel.poelzleithner]

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Chris Dukes wrote:

| Snapshotting 40G has a pretty small additional cost.  Snapshotting 1TB
| is somewhat more expensive.

A snapshot has only the size of the block changed to the main volume.
Snapshotting a 1 TB volume and rebuild the meta data will not need 1 TB,
i think 40 GB would be enough, maybe less.

regards
~ Daniel

- --
nihil me cirumdat

.. . .. ... . . .. . ... . .. . ... . . .
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Re: online fsck

[Matthias Andree]

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004, Jure Pe??ar wrote:

> Is it theoretically posible?

It is actually implemented in the BSD kernels, for UFS. Look for
"softdep" or "softupdates".

As for other file systems, when crashing while the write cache is
enabled (unfortunately, it is in FreeBSD for instance), it can royally
screw up your file system. Beyond repair, to a "use your backup" state.

-- 
Matthias Andree

Encrypt your mail: my GnuPG key ID is 0x052E7D95

online fsck

[btinsley]

Is there or was there a plan to support running reiserfsck on a
mounted v3 filesystem (just a check, not a fix or rebuild)? I seem to
remember this being mentioned here at some point in time, but I was
unable to find it in the mailing list archive.

Thanks!

Re: online fsck

[E.Gryaznova]

Hello.
reiserfsck can check reiserfs filesystem mounted read-only.

Thanks,
Lena

btinsley wrote:

>Is there or was there a plan to support running reiserfsck on a
>mounted v3 filesystem (just a check, not a fix or rebuild)? I seem to
>remember this being mentioned here at some point in time, but I was
>unable to find it in the mailing list archive.
>
>Thanks!
>
>
>  
>

Re: online fsck

[marco]

E.Gryaznova wrote:

> Hello.
> reiserfsck can check reiserfs filesystem mounted read-only.

Running 'fsck.reiserfs --check -y </dev/part>' will do the trick.  The 
equivalent for ext3 and other filesystems is
'fsck -n </dev/part>', the ext3 version detects that it is mounted rw, 
and does a readonly check.

What I wonder is if we can get fsck.reiser[fs,4] to honour option 
processing in a manner more consistant with
the other fscks, so that adding reiserfs to a list of user choosable 
filesystems is not going to cause a nightmare
of an overhead of filesystem detection, command option re-mapping and 
other related headaches.....

>
> Thanks,
> Lena
>
> btinsley wrote:
>
>> Is there or was there a plan to support running reiserfsck on a
>> mounted v3 filesystem (just a check, not a fix or rebuild)? I seem to
>> remember this being mentioned here at some point in time, but I was
>> unable to find it in the mailing list archive.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>>
>>  
>>
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
 Marco Grigull  www.accessplus.com.au  AccessPlus Internet Solutions
Ph +61 7 5451 1146  Fax +61 7 5451 1945 Email marco@accessplus.com.au

Re: online fsck

[btinsley]

What i'm looking for is a check on a reiserfs filesystem that is
mounted read-write. Many modern filesystems, especially those on NAS
devices, can run periodic background consistency checks on filesystems
with almost zero impact on performance. Some devices are reportedly
running these checks constantly, possibly correcting errors without
user intervention... even a notification to a sysadmin would be a good
feature.


On 5/24/05, marco <marco@accessplus.com.au> wrote:
> 
> 
> E.Gryaznova wrote:
> 
> > Hello.
> > reiserfsck can check reiserfs filesystem mounted read-only.
> 
> Running 'fsck.reiserfs --check -y </dev/part>' will do the trick.  The
> equivalent for ext3 and other filesystems is
> 'fsck -n </dev/part>', the ext3 version detects that it is mounted rw,
> and does a readonly check.
> 
> What I wonder is if we can get fsck.reiser[fs,4] to honour option
> processing in a manner more consistant with
> the other fscks, so that adding reiserfs to a list of user choosable
> filesystems is not going to cause a nightmare
> of an overhead of filesystem detection, command option re-mapping and
> other related headaches.....
> 
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Lena
> >
> > btinsley wrote:
> >
> >> Is there or was there a plan to support running reiserfsck on a
> >> mounted v3 filesystem (just a check, not a fix or rebuild)? I seem to
> >> remember this being mentioned here at some point in time, but I was
> >> unable to find it in the mailing list archive.
> >>
> >> Thanks!
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> 
> --
>  Marco Grigull  www.accessplus.com.au  AccessPlus Internet Solutions
> Ph +61 7 5451 1146  Fax +61 7 5451 1945 Email marco@accessplus.com.au
> 
>

Re: online fsck

[marco]

btinsley wrote:

>What i'm looking for is a check on a reiserfs filesystem that is
>mounted read-write. Many modern filesystems, especially those on NAS
>devices, can run periodic background consistency checks on filesystems
>with almost zero impact on performance. Some devices are reportedly
>running these checks constantly, possibly correcting errors without
>user intervention... even a notification to a sysadmin would be a good
>feature.
>
>  
>
I, too, am looking for a solution to be able to do some sort of check 
_regardless_ of whether and how
the filesystem is mounted.....

>On 5/24/05, marco <marco@accessplus.com.au> wrote:
>  
>
>>
>>Running 'fsck.reiserfs --check -y </dev/part>' will do the trick.  The
>>equivalent for ext3 and other filesystems is
>>'fsck -n </dev/part>', the ext3 version detects that it is mounted rw,
>>and does a readonly check.
>>
>>What I wonder is if we can get fsck.reiser[fs,4] to honour option
>>processing in a manner more consistant with
>>the other fscks, so that adding reiserfs to a list of user choosable
>>filesystems is not going to cause a nightmare
>>of an overhead of filesystem detection, command option re-mapping and
>>other related headaches.....
>>
>>    
>>

Re: online fsck

[Philippe Gramoullé]

Hello,

On Tue, 24 May 2005 22:02:20 -0500
btinsley <btinsley@gmail.com> wrote:

  | What i'm looking for is a check on a reiserfs filesystem that is
  | mounted read-write. Many modern filesystems, especially those on NAS
  | devices, can run periodic background consistency checks on filesystems
  | with almost zero impact on performance. Some devices are reportedly
  | running these checks constantly, possibly correcting errors without
  | user intervention... even a notification to a sysadmin would be a good
  | feature.

Last time i asked Hans about the possibility to have a --rebuild-tree (for reiserfs) while the fs is online and mounted rw,
he told me to send 30.000 US Dollars in, and that it could eventually be done ;)

Sure lots of people would find this a killer feature, but someone will definitely have to pay get such a feature implemented.

Thanks,

Philippe

Re: online fsck

[Yiannis Mavroukakis]

Philippe Gramoullé wrote:

>Hello,
>
>On Tue, 24 May 2005 22:02:20 -0500
>btinsley <btinsley@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  | What i'm looking for is a check on a reiserfs filesystem that is
>  | mounted read-write. Many modern filesystems, especially those on NAS
>  | devices, can run periodic background consistency checks on filesystems
>  | with almost zero impact on performance. Some devices are reportedly
>  | running these checks constantly, possibly correcting errors without
>  | user intervention... even a notification to a sysadmin would be a good
>  | feature.
>
>Last time i asked Hans about the possibility to have a --rebuild-tree (for reiserfs) while the fs is online and mounted rw,
>he told me to send 30.000 US Dollars in, and that it could eventually be done ;)
>
>Sure lots of people would find this a killer feature, but someone will definitely have to pay get such a feature implemented.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Philippe
>  
>
Then Hans should setup a paypal account for donations. I'd gladly give 
what I can spare, and I think so would a lot of people here.

______________________________________________________________________
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Re: online fsck

[mjt]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 491 bytes --]

On Fri, May 27, 2005 at 10:32:14AM +0100, Yiannis Mavroukakis wrote:

>Then Hans should setup a paypal account for donations. I'd gladly give 
>what I can spare, and I think so would a lot of people here.

http://namesys.com/support.html

I've donated that way and it's worked every time.

Maybe some feature-specific pools with stats on the web would be
nice, and iirc no one really shot the idea down. After all, I first
mentioned it probably a year ago or so :)

-- 
mjt


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Re: online fsck

[David Masover]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Yiannis Mavroukakis wrote:
> Philippe Gramoullé wrote:
> 
>> Hello,
>>
>> On Tue, 24 May 2005 22:02:20 -0500
>> btinsley <btinsley@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>  | What i'm looking for is a check on a reiserfs filesystem that is
>>  | mounted read-write. Many modern filesystems, especially those on NAS
>>  | devices, can run periodic background consistency checks on filesystems
>>  | with almost zero impact on performance. Some devices are reportedly
>>  | running these checks constantly, possibly correcting errors without
>>  | user intervention... even a notification to a sysadmin would be a good
>>  | feature.
>>
>> Last time i asked Hans about the possibility to have a --rebuild-tree
>> (for reiserfs) while the fs is online and mounted rw,
>> he told me to send 30.000 US Dollars in, and that it could eventually
>> be done ;)
>>
>> Sure lots of people would find this a killer feature, but someone will
>> definitely have to pay get such a feature implemented.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Philippe
>>  
>>
> Then Hans should setup a paypal account for donations. I'd gladly give
> what I can spare, and I think so would a lot of people here.

I'd rather donate for a reiser4 online repacker.  By the time
something's fsck'd, so to speak, I'd rather take it offline and possibly
pull in backups.  But a repacker (even an offine one) and a resizer
(even an offline one) are two things that we even have in the Linux
ntfs-tools, and it's also something that people would have an immediate
use for.

Another killer feature would be to bring back metadata, or at least a
way to create special (plugin) files, and the ability to write certain
kinds of userland plugins, thus giving us FS-level support for things
like zipfiles.  Yet another killer feature would be stable crypto and
compression, and the ability to enable it only for certain directories.

And finally, there's the Windows port.  A full, stable Windows port,
using the ReactOS libs, under a licence which requires blatant
attribution, so that the user knows that they are using a third-party
filesystem.  This would certainly ease the migration to Linux, because
Reiser4 beats NTFS, and Linux doesn't really have reliable NTFS support
(captive is slow and crash-prone).

Think of the first feature and the last one together.  You shrink the
NTFS partition, create a new Reiser4 partition, copy your Windows files
over, nuke the NTFS partition, resize the r4 partition (backwards), and
your Windows is on Reiser4.  Next, you install Linux to a directory in
that r4 partition.  Now all your Windows files are accessible from Linux
and vice versa, until you stop dual-booting, in which case you don't
have to repartition or reinstall.

These are all good features, and they are all something I would rather
donate money towards than an online fsck.



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Re: online fsck

[btinsley]

> I'd rather donate for a reiser4 online repacker.  By the time
> something's fsck'd, so to speak, I'd rather take it offline and possibly
> pull in backups.  But a repacker (even an offine one) and a resizer
> (even an offline one) are two things that we even have in the Linux
> ntfs-tools, and it's also something that people would have an immediate
> use for.

Pulling in backups is not always practical though. It's no fun
restoring a 900GB filesystem from tape, especially when the data has
to be transferred over the network :-)

I would like to see the repacker though. I have certain filesystems
that could really use it. Would it be practical to have an option to
enable the repacker to include some level of consistency checking?
It's been my experience that corruptions requiring a rebuild-tree are
pretty obvious to reiserfsck ;-)

> 
> Another killer feature would be to bring back metadata, or at least a
> way to create special (plugin) files, and the ability to write certain
> kinds of userland plugins, thus giving us FS-level support for things
> like zipfiles.  Yet another killer feature would be stable crypto and
> compression, and the ability to enable it only for certain directories.

I would go for this one as well. Our particular application stores
data in an industry-standard format. Being able to
index/search/crypt/etc. this at the FS level would let me get rid of
the cost and overhead of Oracle :-)

Re: online fsck

[Vladimir Saveliev]

Hello

On Wed, 2005-05-25 at 03:26, marco wrote:
> E.Gryaznova wrote:
> 
> > Hello.
> > reiserfsck can check reiserfs filesystem mounted read-only.
> 
> Running 'fsck.reiserfs --check -y </dev/part>' will do the trick.  The 
> equivalent for ext3 and other filesystems is
> 'fsck -n </dev/part>', the ext3 version detects that it is mounted rw, 
> and does a readonly check.
> 
> What I wonder is if we can get fsck.reiser[fs,4] to honour option 
> processing in a manner more consistant with
> the other fscks, so that adding reiserfs to a list of user choosable 
> filesystems is not going to cause a nightmare
> of an overhead of filesystem detection, command option re-mapping and 
> other related headaches.....
> 

The main problem why reiserfsck does not process similar to other fscks
is that reiserfs (as well as reiser4) moves data on filesystem
modifications so that even files which were not modified recently change
their locations. Online reiserXck should be probably implemented as
kernel thread. Or be able to block filesystem updates, or I do not know
what.
So, in short, reiserXck for r/w mounted filesystem can not be implemened
as plain user land tool,imho.
Also imho, currently the problem is that it is not very clear how to do
it.
We would be happy to hear any thoughts on it.

> >
> > Thanks,
> > Lena
> >
> > btinsley wrote:
> >
> >> Is there or was there a plan to support running reiserfsck on a
> >> mounted v3 filesystem (just a check, not a fix or rebuild)? I seem to
> >> remember this being mentioned here at some point in time, but I was
> >> unable to find it in the mailing list archive.
> >>
> >> Thanks!
> >>
> >>
> >>  
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >