From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Oct 14 12:39:57 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 69F632D4 for ; Mon, 14 Oct 2013 12:39:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwmaillists@googlemail.com) Received: from mail-wg0-x22e.google.com (mail-wg0-x22e.google.com [IPv6:2a00:1450:400c:c00::22e]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 069BD23FB for ; Mon, 14 Oct 2013 12:39:56 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-wg0-f46.google.com with SMTP id m15so657278wgh.1 for ; Mon, 14 Oct 2013 05:39:55 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlemail.com; s=20120113; h=date:from:to:subject:message-id:in-reply-to:references:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=/xO/w2Mxs/K2V21mOo7BqJUtXYvRSQqtLm4jSARv7tI=; b=tPwBgKkp7Yz6YOsqUIT9aelcVjDlRhtxH6KDjimDEZ2qfQHzmhw/bb75YcyVnM1J4c YB6ogixt1rFclV/3/Xzq3VRPa2ND7xeOo7WCpxl2RKs0hGEIqIorh2WjqvxuEZKO29KD EwTJgu8mXd2rYqLtXbqu8ZUwIewUypSFQJrpjZI58rDC39/sW5+C8KJTzadeOpbUN1UA nWUIWhEn7TU6LIU4jCxNPiOI4Xal7t0COYXpUt+4GE6CPxCtNTiMuwDN6ZwkofqC6FcM VgMbHkeio000K9QlfinqFe/E1rRTSJ7+CTkXIkDJ4p5ab7IdUepVDBRBvA6NLRGEqnx9 LwaQ== X-Received: by 10.180.75.232 with SMTP id f8mr14686010wiw.26.1381754395155; Mon, 14 Oct 2013 05:39:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gumby.homeunix.com (87-194-105-247.bethere.co.uk. [87.194.105.247]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPSA id pi6sm24274014wic.3.1969.12.31.16.00.00 (version=SSLv3 cipher=RC4-SHA bits=128/128); Mon, 14 Oct 2013 05:39:54 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2013 13:39:53 +0100 From: RW To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: SU+J Lost files after a power failure Message-ID: <20131014133953.58f74659@gumby.homeunix.com> In-Reply-To: References: <525A6831.5070402@gmail.com> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.9.2 (GTK+ 2.24.19; amd64-portbld-freebsd10.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2013 12:39:57 -0000 On Mon, 14 Oct 2013 05:02:22 -0400 Michael Powell wrote: > David Demelier wrote: > > > Hello there, > > > > I'm writing because after a power failure I was unable to log in on > > my FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE. The SU+J journal were executed correctly > > but some files disappeared, including /etc/pwd.db. Thus I was > > unable to log in. > > > > I've been able to regenerate the password database with a live cd > > but I'm afraid that more files had disappeared somewhere else... > > > > I think this is a serious issue, the journal should not truncate > > files, so something should have gone wrong somewhere.. The journalling in SU+J has nothing to do with data integrity. When the system isn't shut-down cleanly, soft-updates are supposed to leave the filesystem in a self-consistent state, except that it may lose track of some freed disk space. The journal allows that space to be recovered without the lengthy background fsck that used to cripple performance. If you are having problems with data integrity you might try gjournal or zfs instead. If you look back at the lists before these were added there was a lot of suspicion about soft-updates and background checks. Some of the problems were explained by some (mostly desktop) drives incorrecty reporting what has been commited to disk - I don't know whether this is still the case. > This error about the replay of the journal(s) failing is somewhat > disconcerting. I think this is probably a good thing. With background checks you would (if you were looking) occasionally see "unexpected soft-update inconsistency" during the background check, which would lead to a foreground check on the next boot.