Re: First time I've needed fsck.reiserfs

From: Dances With Crows (danSPANceswitTRAPhcrows_at_gmail.com)
Date: 07/28/05 

Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2005 18:16:42 -0500

On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 09:29:16 +1200, Lawrence DčOliveiro staggered into
the Black Sun and said:
> One of this client's machines is prone to intermittent crashes.

This is the root cause of the problem. Flaky hardware, inadequate
cooling, cases that haven't been cleaned in years ... all those things
can contribute to intermittent problems. Bad software usually behaves
the same way every time. Bad hardware tends to exhibit intermittent
problems.

> Yesterday I was transferring several tens of gigabytes of data from
> another machine via rsync, and it went down several times during this
> process.

> At one point, I ended up with a file that triggered "permission
> denied" errors every time I tried to do anything with it--even as
> root. Finally I dismounted the filesystem and ran fsck.reiserfs (with
> the --fix-fixable option) over it, which reported that the file entry
> "pointed nowhere" and removed it.
>
> Anyway, I didn't think it was possible for a reiserfs filesystem to
> become corrupted like this, even if the system crashed during a write.
> Does that point the finger to RAM problems as the cause of the
> crashes?

See first paragraph. I think it's a hardware problem. The ReiserFS
guys had to make certain assumptions about the hardware itself behaving
properly. If the hardware is *not* behaving properly, it doesn't
*matter* which filesystem you're using.

If I were you, I'd check the reports from smartctl (if you have IDE
disks), the temperature of the system (if you have internal temp sensors
anywhere), the RAM with memtest86 if you can spare a few hours, and the
amount of dust and crud inside the case if you can open the machine up.
Replace disks that report SMART problems. Replace fans if the system is
too hot. Replace bad RAM, and get in there with a can of compressed air
if the system's full of dust bunnies. After all that, see if the
intermittent problems continue. If they do, you may be looking at a
dodgy power supply or a flaky motherboard. 

-- 
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin /    mail: TRAP + SPAN don't belong
http://www.brainbench.com     /
-----------------------------/        This space sort of for rent.

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