Question about forcing fsck at boottime

[Chris Rees]

2009/4/6 Bruce Cran <bruce at cran.org.uk>:
> On Sun, 5 Apr 2009 21:40:52 +0100
> Chris Rees <utisoft at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> 2009/3/31 Oliver Fromme <olli at lurza.secnetix.de>:
>> > Chris Rees <utisoft at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> >  > 2009/3/31 Wojciech Puchar <wojtek at wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl>:
>> >  > >
>> >  > > IMHO this background fsck isn't good idea at all
>> >  >
>> >  > Why?
>> >
>> > Google "background fsck damage".
>> >
>> > I was bitten by it myself, and I also recommend to turn
>> > background fsck off.  If your disks are large and you
>> > can't afford the fsck time, consider using ZFS, which
>> > has a lot of benefits besides not requiring fsck.
>> >
>> > Best regards
>> >   Oliver
>> >
>>
>> Right... You were bitten by background fsck, what _exactly_ happened?
>> All the 'problems' here associated with bgfsck are referring to
>> FreeBSD 4 etc, or incredibly vague anecdotal evidence. Have you
>> googled for background fsck damage? Nothing (in the first two pages at
>> least) even suggests that background fsck causes damage.
>>
>
> http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=background+fsck+corruption
>
> You'll find the first few results are about panics during background
> fsck resulting in an endless cycle of boot-panic-reboot, which don't
> occur with foreground fsck. And at least the first result is from 6.x.
>
> --
> Bruce Cran
>

So... Is the background fsck causing damage or corruption? The answer
to that is NO. It's a consequence of reading a bad directory
structure, which happened anyway.

Quoting jpd on this same issue, emphasis added:

> So far we only have *your word* for *vague problems* and *speculated causes*.
> So your best bets so far are to investigate, and lending a hand to the
> fs people with ironing out a possible bug or two.

Seriously, this conversation is full of crap, and only makes one of
FreeBSDs incredibly useful features look bad with no evidence. Can
no-one can come up with a reply either quoting a mailing list or
giving the circumstances when:

a) Background fsck caused data CORRUPTION

_and_

b) A foreground fsck would not have done the same

?

Anything else is sidestepping the question, and spreading FUD.

Anyone?

Perhaps I should CC one of the filesystem developers to get them to
reassure you all? I don't think they'd be too pleased at people saying
their design is flawed. It's not.

Chris

-- 
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?