fsck inadequacies

[Peter Risdon]

Kent Stewart wrote:
> On Friday 26 November 2004 03:16 pm, Mardoc Inc wrote:
> 
>>I run a FreeBSD system at a remote site. It costs me over $4000 to
>>visit the site (northern arctic).
>> It, along with some other equipment, runs off 2 x 50 kW diesel
>>generators which are swapped by a mechanic once per week.  The
>>swap-over takes less than a minute. The computer runs
>>off a UPS, which easily holds its charge during the swap.
> 
> 
> All of the UPSes that I have used come with a warning that the battery 
> will eventually need to be replaced. Are you sure the UPS is still 
> good?
> 
> 
>>But, unlike the other windows systems that run up there, the FreeBSD
>>system seems incredibly
>>prone to disk corruption. Often the system will not reboot, 

I might be being dense here, but why does the system need to be rebooted 
when the generators are swapped over? You say above that the UPS easily 
holds its charge during the swap.

and hangs
>>while it asks for a file check.
>>I can't do that remotely - it has to be a person.
>> I frequently need to run fsck, and that does not always work.  It is
>>hard to instruct a diesel mechanic on such matters from such a
>>distance. "fsck -y"
>> usually does not work either.
>>

Reading this, I get the sequence:

diesel mechanic goes onsite --> there's an unnecessary reboot --> fsck fails

Personally, I'd chat with the mechanic with an eye to preventing 
unnecessary reboots. Sounds like the wetware might be at fault here.

Peter.


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