Reiser FS will not boot after crash

Reiser FS will not boot after crash

[jmh5]

Hi,

  I am observing the following Reiser failure:

  I am trying to use camorama with a Creative WebCam Live spca5xx driver
(recently downloaded and compiled) . Camorama does not start and computer
freezes (no response to mouse, or keyboard. Can't change to terminal
window.

  Reset or pull plug leaves Knoppix 5.0.1-DVD unbootable:

  The actual message from GRUB is inconsistent filesystem?! From a boot
loader?

  The 'fix' is even stranger. I execute fsck.reiserfs from another OS
partition on the Knoppix 5.0.1-DVD partition (takes forever). Somehow
'reading' the Knoppix filesystem 'fixes' whatever was preventing Knoppix
5.0.1-DVD from booting.

  I am curious what your comments and/or suggestions might be?

  regards to all Linuxers,
  john

  

Re: Reiser FS will not boot after crash

[Vladimir V. Saveliev]

Hello

On Monday 04 September 2006 23:26, jmh5@nei.mv.com wrote:
> Hi,
>
>   I am observing the following Reiser failure:
>
>   I am trying to use camorama with a Creative WebCam Live spca5xx driver
> (recently downloaded and compiled) . Camorama does not start and computer
> freezes (no response to mouse, or keyboard. Can't change to terminal
> window.
>
>   Reset or pull plug leaves Knoppix 5.0.1-DVD unbootable:
>
>   The actual message from GRUB is inconsistent filesystem?! From a boot
> loader?

after unclean shutdown journal reply is necessary to return reiserfs to 
consistent state. Maybe GRUB did not do that?

>
>   The 'fix' is even stranger. I execute fsck.reiserfs from another OS
> partition on the Knoppix 5.0.1-DVD partition (takes forever). 

Did fsck complete? What did it report?

> Somehow 
> 'reading' the Knoppix filesystem 'fixes' whatever was preventing Knoppix
> 5.0.1-DVD from booting.
>

fsck replayed the journal.
Does camorama work now?

If it still causes computer freeze - can you please install serial or network 
console and try to catch what does kernel output when it freezes.

>   I am curious what your comments and/or suggestions might be?
>


>   regards to all Linuxers,
>   john

Re: Reiser FS will not boot after crash

[Vladimir V. Saveliev]

Hello

On Tuesday 05 September 2006 00:30, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> On Mon, 04 Sep 2006 23:33:27 +0400, "Vladimir V. Saveliev" said:
> > after unclean shutdown journal reply is necessary to return reiserfs to
> > consistent state. Maybe GRUB did not do that?
>
> A case can be made that GRUB should be keeping its grubby little paws off
> the filesystem journal.  It's a *bootloader*.  It's only purpose in life is
> to load other code that can make intelligent decisions about things like
> how (or even whether) to replay a filesystem journal.

Yes, I did not say that grub has to replay a journal, I just tried to guess 
why grub failed to boot and why things went ok after fsck.

Re: Reiser FS will not boot after crash

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 467 bytes --]

On Mon, 04 Sep 2006 23:33:27 +0400, "Vladimir V. Saveliev" said:

> after unclean shutdown journal reply is necessary to return reiserfs to 
> consistent state. Maybe GRUB did not do that?

A case can be made that GRUB should be keeping its grubby little paws off
the filesystem journal.  It's a *bootloader*.  It's only purpose in life is
to load other code that can make intelligent decisions about things like
how (or even whether) to replay a filesystem journal.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 226 bytes --]

Re: Reiser FS will not boot after crash

[John M Harrison]

Hi - Thanks for your reply. Further comments below:


On Mon, 4 Sep 2006, Vladimir V. Saveliev wrote:

> Hello
> 
> On Monday 04 September 2006 23:26, jmh5@nei.mv.com wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> >   I am observing the following Reiser failure:
> >
> >   I am trying to use camorama with a Creative WebCam Live spca5xx driver
> > (recently downloaded and compiled) . Camorama does not start and computer
> > freezes (no response to mouse, or keyboard. Can't change to terminal
> > window.
> >
> >   Reset or pull plug leaves Knoppix 5.0.1-DVD unbootable:
> >
> >   The actual message from GRUB is inconsistent filesystem?! From a boot
> > loader?
> 
> after unclean shutdown journal reply is necessary to return reiserfs to 
> consistent state. Maybe GRUB did not do that?
> 

You are probably correct. I don't know how to tell if GRUB did or did not
do this.

> >
> >   The 'fix' is even stranger. I execute fsck.reiserfs from another OS
> > partition on the Knoppix 5.0.1-DVD partition (takes forever). 
> 
> Did fsck complete? What did it report?

Yes, fsck did complete with no problems found? This is what confuses me. I
had assumed it would NOT modify the filesystem unless you gave it
permission. From what I can see it must have rewritten at least some part
of the filesystem.

> 
> > Somehow 
> > 'reading' the Knoppix filesystem 'fixes' whatever was preventing Knoppix
> > 5.0.1-DVD from booting.
> >
> 
> fsck replayed the journal.

Sounds like it to me.

> Does camorama work now?

No, camorama (loaded by apt-get install camorama) crashes Knoppix 5.0.1
every time. That said all the programs supplied spca5xx driver and friends
work OK.

Curiously, gnetmeeting, or whatever it's called, cannot connect to the
video webcam? Maybe the next version of the driver or gnetmeeting will fix
this?

> 
> If it still causes computer freeze - can you please install serial or network 
> console and try to catch what does kernel output when it freezes.

I will try to do that. I assume you mean do a tail -f /var/log/messages
from a remote console? Any other files of interest?

> 
> >   I am curious what your comments and/or suggestions might be?
> >
> 
> 
> >   regards to all Linuxers,
> >   john
> 

Re: Reiser FS will not boot after crash

[John M Harrison]

Hi,

   You make some good points. I wonder what the "right" fix is?

   I certainly think the user should not be stopped from booting and then
get the inconsistent filesystem message over and over again as I do.

   Perhaps GRUB should offer to 'replay' the filesystem after discovering
that the filesystem is "inconsistent". I am not sure what other choices
there are since the kernel and the initial boot filesystem are presumably
not loadable?

   john

On Tue, 5 Sep 2006, Vladimir V. Saveliev wrote:

> Hello
> 
> On Tuesday 05 September 2006 00:30, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> > On Mon, 04 Sep 2006 23:33:27 +0400, "Vladimir V. Saveliev" said:
> > > after unclean shutdown journal reply is necessary to return reiserfs to
> > > consistent state. Maybe GRUB did not do that?
> >
> > A case can be made that GRUB should be keeping its grubby little paws off
> > the filesystem journal.  It's a *bootloader*.  It's only purpose in life is
> > to load other code that can make intelligent decisions about things like
> > how (or even whether) to replay a filesystem journal.
> 
> Yes, I did not say that grub has to replay a journal, I just tried to guess 
> why grub failed to boot and why things went ok after fsck.
> 

Re: Reiser FS will not boot after crash

[David Masover]

Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> On Mon, 04 Sep 2006 23:33:27 +0400, "Vladimir V. Saveliev" said:
> 
>> after unclean shutdown journal reply is necessary to return reiserfs to 
>> consistent state. Maybe GRUB did not do that?
> 
> A case can be made that GRUB should be keeping its grubby little paws off
> the filesystem journal.  It's a *bootloader*.  It's only purpose in life is
> to load other code that can make intelligent decisions about things like
> how (or even whether) to replay a filesystem journal.

But, unlike Lilo, Grub usually has to load that other code from a 
filesystem, which means it's already doing more than what bootloaders 
traditionally do.

If it was up to me, we'd all be using LinuxBIOS and kexec, and it 
wouldn't be an issue.

Re: Reiser FS will not boot after crash

[Vladimir V. Saveliev]

Hello

On Tuesday 05 September 2006 04:10, John M Harrison wrote:
> Hi,
>
>    You make some good points. I wonder what the "right" fix is?
>
>    I certainly think the user should not be stopped from booting and then
> get the inconsistent filesystem message over and over again as I do.
>
>    Perhaps GRUB should offer to 'replay' the filesystem after discovering
> that the filesystem is "inconsistent". I am not sure what other choices
> there are since the kernel and the initial boot filesystem are presumably
> not loadable?
>

I looked at grub sources. It looks like it takes journal into account. It may 
have a bug, though.
What version of grub do you have?
Would you like to help to debug the problem?

>    john
>
> On Tue, 5 Sep 2006, Vladimir V. Saveliev wrote:
> > Hello
> >
> > On Tuesday 05 September 2006 00:30, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> > > On Mon, 04 Sep 2006 23:33:27 +0400, "Vladimir V. Saveliev" said:
> > > > after unclean shutdown journal reply is necessary to return reiserfs
> > > > to consistent state. Maybe GRUB did not do that?
> > >
> > > A case can be made that GRUB should be keeping its grubby little paws
> > > off the filesystem journal.  It's a *bootloader*.  It's only purpose in
> > > life is to load other code that can make intelligent decisions about
> > > things like how (or even whether) to replay a filesystem journal.
> >
> > Yes, I did not say that grub has to replay a journal, I just tried to
> > guess why grub failed to boot and why things went ok after fsck.

Re: Reiser FS will not boot after crash

[John M Harrison]

Hi,

   Sorry to take so long giving you a response. I did connect to the box
as it crashed [via ssh]. There were no terminal messages [tail -f
/var/log/messages]. This latest time an initial window for camorama was
starting to open. 

   You ask, "Am I willing to help?" debug the problem. Absolutely. [Linux
has given so much to me!!]

   I reloaded camorama, so I should be able to reproduce the problem. The
problem (not being able to boot) occurs frequently though not every time I
run camorama. So my simple solution has been just to not run that program.

   This box has LILO on the master boot block. This chains to the Knoppix
partition which has GRUB as the partition boot loader. As mentioned GRUB
starts but then claims it finds an inconsistent filesystem.  This repeats
over and over until fsck.reiser is run on this partition from a different
OS on a different partition. fsck.reiser replays the journal at first and
then examines the filesystem and finds nothing wrong. I assume I am using
the "stock"  GRUB which Knoppix 5.0.1 installed since I haven't knowingly
changed it? Perhaps the "problem" is simply that Knoppix installed an
older version of GRUB ? 

    john

On Tue, 5 Sep 2006, Vladimir V. Saveliev wrote:

> Hello
> 
> On Tuesday 05 September 2006 04:10, John M Harrison wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> >    You make some good points. I wonder what the "right" fix is?
> >
> >    I certainly think the user should not be stopped from booting and then
> > get the inconsistent filesystem message over and over again as I do.
> >
> >    Perhaps GRUB should offer to 'replay' the filesystem after discovering
> > that the filesystem is "inconsistent". I am not sure what other choices
> > there are since the kernel and the initial boot filesystem are presumably
> > not loadable?
> >
> 
> I looked at grub sources. It looks like it takes journal into account. It may 
> have a bug, though.
> What version of grub do you have?
> Would you like to help to debug the problem?
> 
> >    john
> >
> > On Tue, 5 Sep 2006, Vladimir V. Saveliev wrote:
> > > Hello
> > >
> > > On Tuesday 05 September 2006 00:30, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> > > > On Mon, 04 Sep 2006 23:33:27 +0400, "Vladimir V. Saveliev" said:
> > > > > after unclean shutdown journal reply is necessary to return reiserfs
> > > > > to consistent state. Maybe GRUB did not do that?
> > > >
> > > > A case can be made that GRUB should be keeping its grubby little paws
> > > > off the filesystem journal.  It's a *bootloader*.  It's only purpose in
> > > > life is to load other code that can make intelligent decisions about
> > > > things like how (or even whether) to replay a filesystem journal.
> > >
> > > Yes, I did not say that grub has to replay a journal, I just tried to
> > > guess why grub failed to boot and why things went ok after fsck.
> 

Re: Reiser FS will not boot after crash

[Jeff Mahoney]

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

Vladimir V. Saveliev wrote:
> Hello
> 
> On Monday 04 September 2006 23:26, jmh5@nei.mv.com wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>>   I am observing the following Reiser failure:
>>
>>   I am trying to use camorama with a Creative WebCam Live spca5xx driver
>> (recently downloaded and compiled) . Camorama does not start and computer
>> freezes (no response to mouse, or keyboard. Can't change to terminal
>> window.
>>
>>   Reset or pull plug leaves Knoppix 5.0.1-DVD unbootable:
>>
>>   The actual message from GRUB is inconsistent filesystem?! From a boot
>> loader?
> 
> after unclean shutdown journal reply is necessary to return reiserfs to 
> consistent state. Maybe GRUB did not do that?

Grub uses the journal in a read-only mode. It doesn't replay it in a
writable fashion. When grub needs a block, it scans the blocks used in
the journal, and uses the most recent copy it finds there before looking
out to the rest of the file system.

>>   The 'fix' is even stranger. I execute fsck.reiserfs from another OS
>> partition on the Knoppix 5.0.1-DVD partition (takes forever). 
> 
> Did fsck complete? What did it report?
> 
>> Somehow 
>> 'reading' the Knoppix filesystem 'fixes' whatever was preventing Knoppix
>> 5.0.1-DVD from booting.
>>
> 
> fsck replayed the journal.
> Does camorama work now?
> 
> If it still causes computer freeze - can you please install serial or network 
> console and try to catch what does kernel output when it freezes.

If the system doesn't work still, I believe grub has a debugging output
mode that could yield more information. You'd need to rebuild and
reinstall it.

- -Jeff

- --
Jeff Mahoney
SUSE Labs
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFCA7nLPWxlyuTD7IRAh4DAJwOP1vihfFBRSWT9p8i5MXTxzEP+QCeI3mJ
7P2HrZdP1Hy1BbvhPi8bXbo=
=k2E8
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: Reiser FS will not boot after crash

[Vladimir V. Saveliev]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2006 bytes --]

Hello

On Wednesday 13 September 2006 18:00, Jeff Mahoney wrote:
> Vladimir V. Saveliev wrote:
> > Hello
> >
> > On Monday 04 September 2006 23:26, jmh5@nei.mv.com wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >>   I am observing the following Reiser failure:
> >>
> >>   I am trying to use camorama with a Creative WebCam Live spca5xx driver
> >> (recently downloaded and compiled) . Camorama does not start and
> >> computer freezes (no response to mouse, or keyboard. Can't change to
> >> terminal window.
> >>
> >>   Reset or pull plug leaves Knoppix 5.0.1-DVD unbootable:
> >>
> >>   The actual message from GRUB is inconsistent filesystem?! From a boot
> >> loader?
> >
> > after unclean shutdown journal reply is necessary to return reiserfs to
> > consistent state. Maybe GRUB did not do that?
>
> Grub uses the journal in a read-only mode. It doesn't replay it in a
> writable fashion. When grub needs a block, it scans the blocks used in
> the journal, and uses the most recent copy it finds there before looking
> out to the rest of the file system.
>
> >>   The 'fix' is even stranger. I execute fsck.reiserfs from another OS
> >> partition on the Knoppix 5.0.1-DVD partition (takes forever).
> >
> > Did fsck complete? What did it report?
> >
> >> Somehow
> >> 'reading' the Knoppix filesystem 'fixes' whatever was preventing Knoppix
> >> 5.0.1-DVD from booting.
> >
> > fsck replayed the journal.
> > Does camorama work now?
> >
> > If it still causes computer freeze - can you please install serial or
> > network console and try to catch what does kernel output when it freezes.
>
> If the system doesn't work still, I believe grub has a debugging output
> mode that could yield more information. You'd need to rebuild and
> reinstall it.
>
knoppix 5.0.1 uses grub-0.97. John, can you, please, patch it with the 
attached patch, build and re-install as boot loader it and try to reproduce 
the problem. Hopefuly, added output will help us to understand why grub finds 
the filesystem is inconsistent.




> -Jeff

[-- Attachment #2: reiserfs-debug.patch --]
[-- Type: text/x-diff, Size: 1470 bytes --]


diff -puN stage2/fsys_reiserfs.c~reiserfs-debug stage2/fsys_reiserfs.c
--- grub-0.97/stage2/fsys_reiserfs.c~reiserfs-debug	2006-09-13 18:41:43.000000000 +0400
+++ grub-0.97-vs/stage2/fsys_reiserfs.c	2006-09-13 18:45:40.000000000 +0400
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
 #include "shared.h"
 #include "filesys.h"
 
-#undef REISERDEBUG
+#define REISERDEBUG 1
 
 /* Some parts of this code (mainly the structures and defines) are
  * from the original reiser fs code, as found in the linux kernel.
@@ -664,6 +664,9 @@ reiserfs_mount (void)
   return 1;
 }
 
+#define fs_corrupted()							\
+  printf("%s: %d: %s: fs inconsistency is found\n", __FILE__, __LINE__, __FUNCTION__)
+
 /***************** TREE ACCESSING METHODS *****************************/
 
 /* I assume you are familiar with the ReiserFS tree, if not go to
@@ -713,6 +716,7 @@ read_tree_node (unsigned int blockNr, in
   /* Make sure it has the right node level */
   if (BLOCKHEAD (cache)->blk_level != depth)
     {
+      fs_corrupted();
       errnum = ERR_FSYS_CORRUPT;
       return 0;
     }
@@ -878,6 +882,7 @@ search_stat (__u32 dir_id, __u32 objecti
 	}
       ih++;
     }
+  fs_corrupted();
   errnum = ERR_FSYS_CORRUPT;
   return 0;
 }
@@ -1058,8 +1063,10 @@ reiserfs_dir (char *dirname)
 	  if (! next_key ()
 	      || reiserfs_read (linkbuf, filemax) != filemax)
 	    {
-	      if (! errnum)
+	      if (! errnum) {
+		fs_corrupted();
 		errnum = ERR_FSYS_CORRUPT;
+	      }
 	      return 0;
 	    }
 

_