Re: Reconstructing Var?
On Fri, Mar 02, 2001 at 09:52:27PM -0600, will trillich wrote: > On Fri, Mar 02, 2001 at 03:07:58PM -0900, Ethan Benson wrote: > > On Fri, Mar 02, 2001 at 06:52:17PM +, Matthew Sackman wrote: > > > > > > When /var went down, I was able to tar and bzip2 up /home /etc /root > > > and drop them into a windows partition which meant that I lost no real > > > > why did you do that? if you have seperate partitions there is no need > > to back them up, just don't initialize them in the debian installer. > > mount them instead. > > what ethan means, is, altho there's probably a good reason to > back up just about anything, you don't have to reset your > partitions when you reinstall debian, even from a cd-boot. like > he said, just MOUNT already-initialized (and filled with booty) > partitions and you're off to the races... Yes - I was aware of that, but I wanted to resize some of the partitions already, and as this computer has to be used by some on linux people and previously partitioning in cfdisk had caused some problems, I decided to start things off afresh and set things up under FDISK in DOS to keep that side of things happy. I did spend some time thinking out the best way of getting this done... > > backup whatever you want to back up. early. and often. take it > from the department of redundancy department. backups are a Good > Thing. > Yes. I do hear you. ;-) Matthew -- Matthew Sackman Nottingham, ENGLAND Using Debian/GNU Linux Enjoying computing
Re: Reconstructing Var?
On Fri, Mar 02, 2001 at 03:07:58PM -0900, Ethan Benson wrote: > On Fri, Mar 02, 2001 at 06:52:17PM +, Matthew Sackman wrote: > > > > When /var went down, I was able to tar and bzip2 up /home /etc /root > > and drop them into a windows partition which meant that I lost no real > > why did you do that? if you have seperate partitions there is no need > to back them up, just don't initialize them in the debian installer. > mount them instead. what ethan means, is, altho there's probably a good reason to back up just about anything, you don't have to reset your partitions when you reinstall debian, even from a cd-boot. like he said, just MOUNT already-initialized (and filled with booty) partitions and you're off to the races... backup whatever you want to back up. early. and often. take it from the department of redundancy department. backups are a Good Thing. -- It is always hazardous to ask "Why?" in science, but it is often interesting to do so just the same. -- Isaac Asimov, 'The Genetic Code' [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newbieDoc -- we need your brain! http://www.dontUthink.com/ -- your brain needs us!
Re: Reconstructing Var?
On Fri, Mar 02, 2001 at 06:52:17PM +, Matthew Sackman wrote: > > When /var went down, I was able to tar and bzip2 up /home /etc /root > and drop them into a windows partition which meant that I lost no real why did you do that? if you have seperate partitions there is no need to back them up, just don't initialize them in the debian installer. mount them instead. debian does not blindly erase every partition, it lets you choose what to mkfs and what to just mount. -- Ethan Benson http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/ pgp7T0uTP0Ptm.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Reconstructing Var?
On Thu, Mar 01, 2001 at 10:35:23PM -0900, Ethan Benson wrote: > On Fri, Mar 02, 2001 at 07:29:21AM +, Matthew Sackman wrote: > > > > > > /usr/bin/yes make backups\!\!\! > > > > I'm a student = have no money for backup devices. Plus I'm still really > > pissed off that I bought a 10gig 7200 rpm seagate about 3 days before a big > > thread in here on how unreliable seagates are. Agh! > > > > Plus I have no IDE slots left so would have to buy a SCSI = very expensive. > > poo :-( > > well in this case you should split off your partitions, create > seperate / /tmp /usr /var and /home partitions. then backup /var (or > just /var/lib/dpkg) to /home/backup/ *usually* filesystem corruption > does not end up wrecking all your filesystems at the same time, so if > only /var gets trashed (in this case) you still have a backup in > /home/backup. > > if the disk dies your screwed, but this method protects you from > filesystem corruption fairly well. Well yes: currently I use eight partitions, including one /misc which I can use for backups of non-really-big stuff: [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ df Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/hdb8 1542156326000 1216156 22% / /dev/hdb515522 2674 12047 19% /boot /dev/hdb7 1028092110340917752 11% /misc /dev/hdb9 4883556 1128692 3754864 24% /usr /dev/hdd5 10148529 96216 1% /tmp /dev/hdd6 512012116200395812 23% /root /dev/hdd7 717636486296231340 68% /var /dev/hdd8 1552236993120559116 64% /home When /var went down, I was able to tar and bzip2 up /home /etc /root and drop them into a windows partition which meant that I lost no real work - only work done on setting up debian was lost - no school work or such like. Unfortunately, I did have to let go to my mp3 collection: bzip2 couldn't handle a tar file that big! But yes, I suppose the only precaution I can take is to back up the very important stuff to /misc. I guess I really should write a script to do that and then fire it off from cron every couple of days Any ideas about an effective scipt to do this? Any recommended programs? Matthew PS: One other advantage of partitioning this heavily is that when I was writing some web perl scripts a couple of months ago and made a recursive error, /var rapidly filled as apache got screwed with firing out error messages. But the machine didn't crash: I suspect things would have got a lot nastier if I hadn't got /var on a seperate partition. -- Matthew Sackman Nottingham, ENGLAND Using Debian/GNU Linux Enjoying computing
Re: Reconstructing Var?
On Fri, Mar 02, 2001 at 07:29:21AM +, Matthew Sackman wrote: > > > > /usr/bin/yes make backups\!\!\! > > I'm a student = have no money for backup devices. Plus I'm still really > pissed off that I bought a 10gig 7200 rpm seagate about 3 days before a big > thread in here on how unreliable seagates are. Agh! > > Plus I have no IDE slots left so would have to buy a SCSI = very expensive. > poo :-( well in this case you should split off your partitions, create seperate / /tmp /usr /var and /home partitions. then backup /var (or just /var/lib/dpkg) to /home/backup/ *usually* filesystem corruption does not end up wrecking all your filesystems at the same time, so if only /var gets trashed (in this case) you still have a backup in /home/backup. if the disk dies your screwed, but this method protects you from filesystem corruption fairly well. -- Ethan Benson http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/ pgpxecehDgsGs.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re[2]: Reconstructing Var?
On Thu, 1 Mar 2001 14:48:59 -0900 Ethan Benson > wrote: > On Thu, Mar 01, 2001 at 09:58:36PM +, Matthew Sackman wrote: > > > Weird - this is exactely what happened to me two weeks ago - I was just > > doing > > some simple scans of the hard disc and reiserfs found some bugs. It then > > completely wiped /var. /var/lib/dpkg was screwed (along with everything else > > in /var) so I was reduced to reinstalling. Seeing as I track woody, and have > > potato disks and a 56k modem connection, it has taken some time to get back > > to normal. > > > > Sorry - no choice but to reinstall from scratch. > > /usr/bin/yes make backups\!\!\! I'm a student = have no money for backup devices. Plus I'm still really pissed off that I bought a 10gig 7200 rpm seagate about 3 days before a big thread in here on how unreliable seagates are. Agh! Plus I have no IDE slots left so would have to buy a SCSI = very expensive. poo :-( Matthew -- Matthew Sackman Nottingham, ENGLAND Using Debian/GNU Linux Enjoying computing
Re: Reconstructing Var?
On Thu, Mar 01, 2001 at 09:58:36PM +, Matthew Sackman wrote: > Weird - this is exactely what happened to me two weeks ago - I was just doing > some simple scans of the hard disc and reiserfs found some bugs. It then > completely wiped /var. /var/lib/dpkg was screwed (along with everything else > in /var) so I was reduced to reinstalling. Seeing as I track woody, and have > potato disks and a 56k modem connection, it has taken some time to get back > to normal. > > Sorry - no choice but to reinstall from scratch. /usr/bin/yes make backups\!\!\! -- Ethan Benson http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/ pgpF0bYMEoCEk.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Reconstructing Var?
On Wed, 28 Feb 2001 19:34:55 -0900 Ethan Benson > wrote: > On Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 09:05:19PM -0600, John Travis wrote: > > Is there an easy way to reconstruct the basic heirarchy and files for /var? > > I had a reiserfs meltdown after installing 2.4.2. I'm not really sure if it > > was that or the new reiserutils or a combination of both. reiserfsck > > managed to fix everything except for /var which was pretty well hosed. So I > > had to dpkg -X the older version of reiserutils and install it manually. > > Then a reiserfsck --rebuild-tree on var fixed the problem, but as expected > > nuked _everything_ on the partition. So is there anything easier than > > manually creating/touching files as needed for syslogd, dpkg, gdm, etc. > > etc.? > > if /var/lib/dpkg/* is gone and you have no backups your screwed. > reinstall your system from scratch. > Weird - this is exactely what happened to me two weeks ago - I was just doing some simple scans of the hard disc and reiserfs found some bugs. It then completely wiped /var. /var/lib/dpkg was screwed (along with everything else in /var) so I was reduced to reinstalling. Seeing as I track woody, and have potato disks and a 56k modem connection, it has taken some time to get back to normal. Sorry - no choice but to reinstall from scratch. -- Matthew Sackman Nottingham, ENGLAND Using Debian/GNU Linux Enjoying computing
Re: Reconstructing Var?
On Wed, 28 Feb 2001 19:34:55 -0900, you wrote: >if /var/lib/dpkg/* is gone and you have no backups your screwed. >reinstall your system from scratch. This is what I was afraid of. And yes, it's ALL gone :-(. I had gotten so used to the reliabiltiy of 'unstable' that I had neglected to make proper backups for quite some time. My fault, won't happen again 8^). >you might consider going back to ext2 for awhile, until reiserfs is >really mature [1]. just because its a journaling filesystem doesn't >mean you can't get fs corruption. I might. I think I might also look into some others like xfs etc. As long as I don't forget to pay my electric bill I don't really have to worry much anyway ;-). >[1] reiserfs does not work at all on big endian archetectures, that is >not a mature filesystem in my book. I seem to have run into the one big problem, the 'not quite there' tools to repair said damage. The _only_ way to 'fix' the problems were to do a reiserfsck --rebuild-tree on /var. It warned me that this was extremely dangerous and only to be used as a last desperate messure. But I was already screwed and it was the only option I could see at the time :-( thanks again, jt
Re: Reconstructing Var?
On Thu, 01 Mar 2001 14:55:26 +1100, you wrote: >When you say 'meltdown', what exactly do you mean? Can you go into more >detail about what appeared to happen? What kernel version did you >upgrade from? What versions of the reiserfs-utils did you move between? Not really sured why/what happened. First of all I'm running Sid, with everything being Reiserfs except for boot (and some ext2 for progeny). I was happily running kernel 2.4.1, with the latest reiserfsprogs from unstable (this was just updated recently IIRC). I did a make-kpkg as usual, but on first boot it all went to shi*. I asked about it under the thread "Uh-Oh..." >I was just about to upgrade to 2.4.2, and I have a 17Gb reiserfs >partition, so I'd be very interested to know what we're dealing with >here. At the moment I have 2.4.1 with reiserfs-utils version [Crap! >www.namesys.com is busted so I can't find the version number]... well >the one that was on the Namesys site when 2.4.1 came out (probably the >latest). > >Has anyone else experienced problems with their reiserfs partitions >after upgrading to 2.4.2? Reiser has worked flawlessly for me with several distros for quite some time. I seem to have run into the one drawback. It's tools for repairing damage are not as proven as those of ext2. jt
Re: Reconstructing Var?
On Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 09:05:19PM -0600, John Travis wrote: > Is there an easy way to reconstruct the basic heirarchy and files for /var? > I had a reiserfs meltdown after installing 2.4.2. I'm not really sure if it > was that or the new reiserutils or a combination of both. reiserfsck > managed to fix everything except for /var which was pretty well hosed. So I > had to dpkg -X the older version of reiserutils and install it manually. > Then a reiserfsck --rebuild-tree on var fixed the problem, but as expected > nuked _everything_ on the partition. So is there anything easier than > manually creating/touching files as needed for syslogd, dpkg, gdm, etc. > etc.? if /var/lib/dpkg/* is gone and you have no backups your screwed. reinstall your system from scratch. you might consider going back to ext2 for awhile, until reiserfs is really mature [1]. just because its a journaling filesystem doesn't mean you can't get fs corruption. [1] reiserfs does not work at all on big endian archetectures, that is not a mature filesystem in my book. -- Ethan Benson http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/ pgpLI8mXUdexh.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Reconstructing Var?
On Thu, 1 Mar 2001, Matthew Dalton wrote: > Has anyone else experienced problems with their reiserfs partitions > after upgrading to 2.4.2? All systems a-go on this box. [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ uname -a Linux solvent 2.4.2 #3 SMP Sat Feb 24 21:37:46 EST 2001 i686 unknown [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ mount /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 on / type ext2 (rw) proc on /proc type proc (rw) /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part2 on /boot type ext2 (rw) /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part5 on /usr type reiserfs (rw) /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part6 on /usr/local type ext2 (rw) /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part7 on /home type reiserfs (rw) /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part8 on /var type reiserfs (rw) /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part9 on /tmp type reiserfs (rw) /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target2/lun0/part1 on /storage-1 type vfat (rw) /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target3/lun0/part1 on /storage-2 type reiserfs (rw) none on /dev/shm type shm (rw) [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ df Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 116648 31995 79835 29% / /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part2 2 3842 18287 18% /boot /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part5 5421716493312 4928404 10% /usr /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part6 5336664 2725552 2340020 54% /usr/local /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part7 5421716 1836328 3585388 34% /home /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part8 650568266132384436 41% /var /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part9 650568 32840617728 6% /tmp /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target2/lun0/part1 6317220 5768984548236 92% /storage-1 /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target3/lun0/part1 17935960 4620544 13315416 26% /storage-2
Re: Reconstructing Var?
John Travis wrote: > > Is there an easy way to reconstruct the basic heirarchy and files for /var? > I had a reiserfs meltdown after installing 2.4.2. When you say 'meltdown', what exactly do you mean? Can you go into more detail about what appeared to happen? What kernel version did you upgrade from? What versions of the reiserfs-utils did you move between? I was just about to upgrade to 2.4.2, and I have a 17Gb reiserfs partition, so I'd be very interested to know what we're dealing with here. At the moment I have 2.4.1 with reiserfs-utils version [Crap! www.namesys.com is busted so I can't find the version number]... well the one that was on the Namesys site when 2.4.1 came out (probably the latest). Has anyone else experienced problems with their reiserfs partitions after upgrading to 2.4.2? Matthew
Reconstructing Var?
Is there an easy way to reconstruct the basic heirarchy and files for /var? I had a reiserfs meltdown after installing 2.4.2. I'm not really sure if it was that or the new reiserutils or a combination of both. reiserfsck managed to fix everything except for /var which was pretty well hosed. So I had to dpkg -X the older version of reiserutils and install it manually. Then a reiserfsck --rebuild-tree on var fixed the problem, but as expected nuked _everything_ on the partition. So is there anything easier than manually creating/touching files as needed for syslogd, dpkg, gdm, etc. etc.? TIA, jt
