Bakul Shah wrote: > > I have been tending UNIX computers of all sorts for many years and > > there is one bit of wisdom that has yet to fail me: > > > > Every now and then, boot in single-user and run full fsck > > on all filesystems. > > > > If this had failed to be productive, I would have given up the > > habit years ago, but it is still a good idea it seems. > > Even now I use fsck in forground since the background fsck > was not stable enough the last time I used it. But I > remember thinking fsck was taking too long for as long as I > have used it (since 1981).
If your problem is "availability", then any "time > 0" counts as "too long". Taking the whole system offline, while the rest of the world has gone into an electronic transaction frenzy because some world event, and running a BG fsck is not really an option. > Anything that runs for half hour or more in fg is likely to > take longer in bg. What happens if the system crashes again > before it finishes? Will bg fsck handle that? Am I right in > thinking that it can not save files in /lost+found? It can, but it has to be changed; it's pretty ugly. Your best bet is to precreate "lost+found", and then modify the code to allow you to ftruncate(2) a directory large, forcibly allocating backing blocks for it (that was my last workaround to the problem). > > Optimizing fsck is a valid project, I just wish it would be somebody > > who would also finish the last 30% who would do it. > > I am skeptical you will get more than a factor of 2 > improvement without changing the FS (but hey, that is 3 hours > for Julian so I am sure he will be happy with that!). I'm skeptical you will get a factor of 2. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
