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ReiserFS file corruption

DISCUSSION Emmanuel Varagnat 6 participants 6 messages Aug 6, 2001 – Aug 7, 2001 Documentation

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#0 lore raw

Today, I crashed the kernel and after reboot the source file I was working on, was completly unreadable. The size indicated by 'ls' seems to be good but with bad data.

Is this behavior normal (because the FS seems correct) ? The worst I hoped is loosing the last save, but not everything.

Must I patch to a newer version ?
I'm using a 2.4.3 version.

Thanks

-Manu

PS: Finally I greped the partition and recover my file.

#1 lore raw
Quoted 10 lines · Emmanuel Varagnat

Today, I crashed the kernel and after reboot the source file I was working on, was completly unreadable. The size indicated by 'ls' seems to be good but with bad data.

Is this behavior normal (because the FS seems correct) ? The worst I hoped is loosing the last save, but not everything.

Must I patch to a newer version ?
I'm using a 2.4.3 version.

I would certainly upgrade to 2.4.7. There are know reiserfs trouble in 2.4.3 - and 2.4.7 is a lot more stable than 2.4.3.

Rasmus

Signature · 6 lines
-- [ Rasmus 'Møffe' Bøg Hansen ] ---------------------------------------
Is there anything else I can contribute?
The latitude and longtitude of the bios writers current position, and
a ballistic missile.
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--------------------------------- [ moffe at amagerkollegiet dot dk ] --
#2 lore raw
In reply to Emmanuel Varagnat
Quoted 7 lines · Emmanuel Varagnat

Today, I crashed the kernel and after reboot the source file I was working on, was completly unreadable. The size indicated by 'ls' seems to be good but with bad data.

Is this behavior normal (because the FS seems correct) ? The worst I hoped is loosing the last save, but not everything.

Yes, this is normal. You're being hit by metadata only journalling. Configure your editor to make backup files, this will make sure you can recover the last version.

Bas Vermeulen

Signature · 5 lines
"God, root, what is difference?"
	-- Pitr, User Friendly

"God is more forgiving."
	-- Dave Aronson
#3 lore raw
In reply to Emmanuel Varagnat
Quoted 4 lines · Emmanuel Varagnat

Today, I crashed the kernel and after reboot the source file I was working on, was completly unreadable. The size indicated by 'ls' seems to be good but with bad data.

Well reiserfs doesn't guarantee the CONTENTS of the file to be consistent after a crash; only the metadata.

#4 lore raw
In reply to Emmanuel Varagnat
Quoted 8 lines · Arjan van de Ven
Quoted 4 lines · Emmanuel Varagnat

Today, I crashed the kernel and after reboot the source file I was working on, was completly unreadable. The size indicated by 'ls' seems to be good but with bad data.

Well reiserfs doesn't guarantee the CONTENTS of the file to be consistent after a crash; only the metadata.

Hrrrm, maybe the following change (or something like it) would be good for Documentation/Configure.help

===== Configure.help 1.46 vs edited =====

Configure.help Tue Aug 7 13:27:41 2001 renamed from Documentation/Configure.help Sat Aug 4 11:40:39 2001 +6 -1
@@ -11706,7 +11706,12 @@
 CONFIG_REISERFS_FS
 
   Stores not just filenames but the files themselves in a balanced
-  tree.  Uses journaling.
+  tree.  Currently uses metatdata-only journaling.
+
+  (NOTE: metadata-only journalling only ensures the filesystem is
+  consistent after a crash, NOT the data! You need data AND metadata
+  journaling to guarantee open files do not get corrupted on a crash.
+  full data journalling is also slower.)
 
   Balanced trees are more efficient than traditional
   filesystem architectural foundations.
#5 lore raw
In reply to Emmanuel Varagnat
Quoted 13 lines · Emmanuel Varagnat

Today, I crashed the kernel and after reboot the source file I was working on, was completly unreadable. The size indicated by 'ls' seems to be good but with bad data.

Is this behavior normal (because the FS seems correct) ? The worst I hoped is loosing the last save, but not everything.

Must I patch to a newer version ?
I'm using a 2.4.3 version.

Thanks

Quoted 8 lines

-Manu

PS: Finally I greped the partition and recover my file.
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If your editor rewrites the entire file with every small change (and it probably does), then if you crash at the wrong moment you can corrupt the entire file. If you use emacs or vi, it keeps a backup copy until the write is synced to disk successfully.

You should definitely use 2.4.7, it is much better.

Hans