Re: Filesystem synchronization problem

[Michael Banck]

On Tue, May 04, 2004 at 04:33:45PM +0200, soeren.d.schulze@gmx.de wrote:
> I am having a problem with my ext2 filesystem. Sometimes at shutdown it
> seems not to be unmounted correctly. After printing all the shutdown
> messages, the system hangs then for some seconds. At the next startup, fsck
> tells wants me to repair the filesystem manually i.e. it is pretty broken.
> 
> I did some research on the problem: On some system runs the explicit "sync"
> call fails (it does not react and I have to kill it with ^C). When i try to
> shut down (halt or reboot) after, the problem with the filesystem appears.
> So it must be a sync problem.
> 
> Modifying data on a running but unsyncable FS has completely destroyed some
> installations of mine.
> 
> Google told me I am not the only user having this problem:
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2000/debian-hurd-200008/msg00242.html
> The description sounds similar to mine. I will try to contact the sender.
> I found some more descriptions once, but unfortunately I had not added a
> bookmark for them and I have cleaned my browser address cache.
> 
> Currently I am running a Debian GNU/Hurd installation via crosshurd but the
> problem also appeared with installations from the ISOs that were destroyed
> by it ...

Which version of the hurd package do you have? I experienced similar
problems quite frequently in the past, but the current version
(20040301-1) seems to be much better for me at least.

One thing I've noticed though: Building large packages (like, e.g.
glibc) on a seperate partition seems to work without any problems now.
On the other hand, I have some minor filesystem corruption on my root
partition each time I install packages. Some stuff about Bitmap
differences, I have not noted the exact message. I do not seem to have
problems syncing the file systems though. 

Running 'sync' syncs all mounted file systems, right?


Michael