Re: Cross-linked blocks

[Bryn M. Reeves]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Esa Murtomäki wrote:
> Hi Bryn, thanks for a quick answer.
> Comments below.
> 
> Bryn M. Reeves wrote:
>> Esa Murtomäki wrote:
>>> I have a problem with partition resize. Parted stops
>>> with an error from cross-linked blocks. Unfortunately
>>> e2fsck doesn't seem to help with this problem.
>> We could try to figure out what is wrong here - a dumpe2fs
>> log or an e2image of the affected file system might
>> contain enough data to debug this (the dumpe2fs output
>> will be fairly small and compresses well. The e2image
>> data would be much larger even when compressed since it
>> records all the metadata from the file system).
> 
> The dumpe2fs output is available at:
> http://bagend.fi/~murtzi/linked/backup_sdb1_fsdump.gz

Thanks - I'll try to find some time to take a look at this, although I
can't promise a quick fix for the ext3 resizing code in parted.

> I need to check the file system contents before I can send 
> e2image data as I don't know if there is confidential 
> information.

No problem - e2image will only collect metadata, not file data, but it
will expose directory layouts, file names, permissions and xattrs (e.g.
ACLs and SELinux security labels).

> I could use resize2fs to resize the file system but what 
> else program (than parted) supports GPT and is able to 
> resize >2TB partitions?

As a workaround, you can remove the partition (rm <minor>) and then
re-create it with the exact same starting cylinder (you can take a
backup of the partition table first for safekeeping). I have used this
procedure with good results on a number of occasions.

There's been some discussion recently of adding an extra option for
resize to allow changing just the partition and ignoring the file system
content. For your case this would allow you to avoid the problem you're
hitting and is probably a lot easier/quicker to implement than fixing
the resize problem.

Regards,
Bryn.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFIY7Do6YSQoMYUY94RArh/AKCAk3QkA0Fyr7zCfXZ6nnZ6qVIcngCg2QEW
w1+l40YsIJac+XACZc9oENY=
=JIlG
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----