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Re: [LUG] huge file recurring, hiding



Adrian Midgley wrote:

akm@xxxxxxx:~ > df
Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda3             38053708  20037516  16083172  56% /
/dev/hda1                23302      5435     16664  25% /boot
/dev/hdb1             19550532  10955972   8594560  57% /2
shmfs                   563392         0    563392   0% /dev/shm
akm@xxxxxxx:~ > uptime
 10:22am  up 1 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.72, 0.21, 0.07
akm@xxxxxxx:~ >

POOH!

/dev/hda3 umount failed on shutdown.  Reiserfs did an extra synch and hoped
it would be all right to remount.  It evidently was.

So, question to gurus:  Could I have fixed (extra synch?) the /hda3 without
doing a shutdown?

Urm sync is just to flush data from memory to disk. As in the
magic incantation "sync ; sync ; sync ; reboot" (from the days
before "reboot -n"). Old habits die hard, I still type "sync" if
possible, before hitting the power switch on recalcitrant *nix
boxes that refuse to shutdown properly.

Reiserfsck requires at least a read only filesystem AFAIK so you
would have to stop normal operations to run it on the root
filesystem.

I've seen one suspected case of ReiserFS corruption ever, I have
seen a LOT of deleted files held open by manic processes writing
data to them. Are you looking for Zebra? (is that the right
medical terminology?).

Ensure you have latest Reiser patches for your distro.

If it happens again I'd try stopping and restarting services
first to eliminate the possibility of it being a file held open.

Many big Unix server systems use many small logical partitions
to localise the effects of run away disk space usage or other
problems. It is not uncommon to see "/var" or even
"/var/spool/lp" on it's own partition. With good partitioning
tools this isn't as painful as it sounds, but it does make for
more admin work :(

Simon

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