From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751386AbZH0G6i (ORCPT ); Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:58:38 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751324AbZH0G6i (ORCPT ); Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:58:38 -0400 Received: from sandeen.net ([209.173.210.139]:28021 "EHLO mail.sandeen.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751302AbZH0G6h (ORCPT ); Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:58:37 -0400 X-Greylist: delayed 1831 seconds by postgrey-1.27 at vger.kernel.org; Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:58:37 EDT Message-ID: <4A962774.9000604@redhat.com> Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:28:04 -0700 From: Eric Sandeen User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Macintosh/20090812) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Theodore Tso , david@lang.hm, Pavel Machek , Rik van Riel , Ric Wheeler , Florian Weimer , Goswin von Brederlow , Rob Landley , kernel list , Andrew Morton , mtk.manpages@gmail.com, rdunlap@xenotime.net, linux-doc@vger.kernel.org, linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org, corbet@lwn.net, jack@suse.cz Subject: Re: [patch] ext2/3: document conditions when reliable operation is possible References: <20090824212518.GF29763@elf.ucw.cz> <20090824223915.GI17684@mit.edu> <20090824230036.GK29763@elf.ucw.cz> <4A932B18.1020209@redhat.com> <20090825093414.GB15563@elf.ucw.cz> <4A94ACDF.30405@redhat.com> <20090826111751.GC26595@elf.ucw.cz> <20090826131028.GB1370@ucw.cz> <20090826180248.GB6997@mit.edu> In-Reply-To: <20090826180248.GB6997@mit.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Theodore Tso wrote: > On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 06:43:24AM -0700, david@lang.hm wrote: >>>> as the ext3 authors have stated many times over the years, you still need >>>> to run fsck periodicly anyway. >>> Where is that documented? >> linux-kernel mailing list archives. > > Probably from some 6-8 years ago, in e-mail postings that I made. My > argument has always been that PC-class hardware is crap, and it's a > Really Good Idea to periodically check the metadata because corruption > there can end up causing massive data loss. The main problem is that > doing it at reboot time really hurt system availability, and "after 20 > reboots (plus or minus)" resulted in fsck checks at wildly varying > intervals depending on how often people reboot. Aside ... can we default mkfs.ext3 to not set a mandatory fsck interval then? :) -Eric > What I've been recommending for some time is that people use LVM, and > run fsck on a snapshot every week or two, at some convenient time when > the system load is at a minimum. There is an e2croncheck script in > the e2fsprogs sources, in the contrib directory; it's short enough > that I'll attach here here. > > Is it *necessary*? In a world where hardware is perfect, no. In a > world where people don't bother buying ECC memory because it's 10% > more expensive, and PC builders use the cheapest possible parts --- I > think it's a really good idea. > > - Ted