Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 16:32:36 -0500 From: Brian Fundakowski Feldman <green@FreeBSD.org> To: mckusick@FreeBSD.org, fs@FreeBSD.org Subject: SoftUpdates/fsck considered harmful Message-ID: <200402212132.i1LLWa7P057630@green.homeunix.org>
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I lost some data which was important to me (thankfully, not lost completely, as a fgrep on the hard disk was able to find a copy) because of a crash while SoftUpdates had some data not yet flushed. I simply had done this: 1. vi file 2. *edit edit edit, :wq* 3. ci file 4. co -l file That should have left me with several copies of it, but when the system panicked, upon reboot fsck told me: Feb 19 21:34:46 green fsck: /dev/ad0s2e: UNREF FILE I=448021 OWNER=green MODE=100644 Feb 19 21:34:46 green fsck: /dev/ad0s2e: SIZE=6298 MTIME=Feb 19 20:38 2004 (CLEARED) I'm certain this was the file I was editing. SoftUpdates only guarantees the disk is in a valid state, not that I won't lost files, but if fsck hadn't decided that "UNREF" meant "the user did not intend this file to exist any longer", I would have had a copy of it in /home/lost+found! Can there please be a less harmful behavior than simply not restoring unlinked files just because they appear to be "UNREF"? -- Brian Fundakowski Feldman \'[ FreeBSD ]''''''''''\ <> green@FreeBSD.org \ The Power to Serve! \ Opinions expressed are my own. \,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,\
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