Re: Power loss and zero-length files

Ben Myers
2013-08-23T15:45:34Z

On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 11:27:19AM -0400, Robert Widmer wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 11:20 AM, Ben Myers <bpm@sgi.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hey Robert,
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 10:59:50AM -0400, Robert Widmer wrote:
> > > I had a script that updated several files on an XFS filesystem using "sed
> > > -i", and someone decided to power cycle the box without a sync after
> > > running the script, and found that all the files that were updated were now
> > > zero-length.
> >
> > How did they power cycle the box? With a 'shutdown -h now' you shouldn't have
> > this behavior, but resetting or unplugging the machine is a different matter.
>
> The person ran the script, unplugged the machine (instead of shutting
> it down like they were told), and boxed it up.

lol ;)

> > > Curious, I ran the following script to try and isolate the behavior:
> > >
> > >
> > > #!/usr/bin/perl
> > >
> > > my $dir = "/home/$ENV{USER}/XFSTest";
> > > mkdir $dir;
> > > chdir $dir;
> > >
> > > my $filecount = 100;
> > > my $tmpfile = 'file.tmp';
> > >
> > > while (1) {
> > > for (my $i=0; $i<$filecount; $i++) {
> > > my $filename = "file.$i";
> > > open(OUT, ">", $tmpfile);
> > > print OUT "Time:".localtime."\n";
> > > close OUT;
> > > rename $tmpfile, $filename;
> > > }
> > > }
> > >
> > >
> > > On the following release/kernels in a VM:
> > >
> > > Fedora 16 w/kernel 3.1.0-7.fc16.x86_64
> > > Fedora 16 w/kernel 3.6.11-4.fc16.x86_64
> > > Fedora 19 w/kernel 3.10-7.200.fc19.x86_64
> > > Ubuntu 13.04 w/kernel 3.8.0-19-generic
> > >
> > >
> > > And after a power cycle, all the files are zero-length with no extents.
> > >
> > > (CentOS 6.4 w/kernel 2.6.32-358.14.1.el6.centos.plus.x86_64 has the binary
> > > NULLS)
> > >
> > > Barriers are not disabled and drive cache:
> > > [ 2.145011] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Cache data unavailable
> > > [ 2.145013] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
> > >
> > >
> > > The closest thing I can find in the documentation is the XFS FAQ which
> > > mentions "you are looking at an inode which was flushed out, but whose data
> > > was not", which seems to indicate that the inode writes and data writes are
> > > not done in order, but nothing explicitly documents this.
> >
> > You have it correct. The inode writes are a separate from the data writes.
> >
> > > Is this expected behavior?
> > >
> > > I've added a sync to the end of my script to try and ensure this does not
> > > happen again, and losing some amount of data after a power loss is
> > > expected, but it seems counter-intuitive that the inode/data writes are not
> > > done in order and that rapid file changes can result in such a large number
> > > of files being zero-length.
> >
> > For a reset or hard power cycle this is the expected behavior. The inode will
> > have been logged when it was created and is likely to be written out before the
> > data. Unless you issue an fsync, the data will be sitting around in cache
> > until the kernel decides to write the pages out, and only then is the size
> > updated. Adding the fsync is the right thing to do. ;)
>
> Okey dokey, I'll be more vigilant in making sure my changes are
> synced. Thanks for the quick response.

No problem. Good luck!

-Ben