ufs_dirbad: bad dir panic (Was Areca Weirdness)

[Lawrence Farr]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-stable at freebsd.org 
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-stable at freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Kris Kennaway
> Sent: 21 November 2006 21:07
> To: Lawrence Farr
> Cc: freebsd-stable at freebsd.org; 'Tom Samplonius'; 'Kris Kennaway'
> Subject: Re: ufs_dirbad: bad dir panic (Was Areca Weirdness)
> 
> On Tue, Nov 21, 2006 at 10:27:18AM -0000, Lawrence Farr wrote:
> >  
> > 
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Kris Kennaway [mailto:kris at obsecurity.org] 
> > > Sent: 21 November 2006 00:44
> > > To: Tom Samplonius
> > > Cc: Kris Kennaway; freebsd-stable at freebsd.org; Lawrence Farr
> > > Subject: Re: ufs_dirbad: bad dir panic (Was Areca Weirdness)
> > > 
> > > On Mon, Nov 20, 2006 at 04:29:17PM -0800, Tom Samplonius wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > ----- Kris Kennaway <kris at obsecurity.org> wrote:
> > > > > > > > > >> If I newfs it, and copy data to it, I have 
> no problem
> > > > > > > initially.
> > > > > > I can repeat this 100% now, by copying data onto 
> the drive then
> > > > > unmounting
> > > > > > and remounting it. I have a core dump if anyone can 
> tell me what
> > > > > info to
> > > > > > get from it:
> > > > > > 
> > > > > >   Version String: FreeBSD 6.2-PRERELEASE #0: Wed Nov 15 
> > > 19:57:01 GMT
> > > > > 2006
> > > > > >     
> > > root at monitor.shorewood-epc.co.uk:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/P6NOUSB
> > > > > >   Panic String: ufs_dirbad: bad dir
> > > > > 
> > > > > Run fsck -fy on the filesystem, this is a common symptom of a
> > > > > corrupted filesystem.
> > > > 
> > > >   I think the OP knows the filesystem is corrupted.  The 
> > > problem is why does the filesystem get corrupted?  The OP 
> > > says he can corrupt the filesystem on demand after a newfs.  
> > > So it could be the Areca driver, or even bad hardware.
> > > 
> > > My point is that this panic can happen when your 
> filesystem becomes
> > > corrupted, and the panic keeps happening during "normal" 
> filesystem
> > > operations until you forcibly fsck it, at which point the 
> panic goes
> > > away.
> > > 
> > > Kris
> > > 
> > 
> > I have been newfs'ing it and starting again, and it will 
> work once, but 
> > once unmounted and re-mounted it will panic with ufs_dirbad.
> 
> OK, that's a different matter then.  One thing you could try would be
> to write known data directly to the device and then read it back or
> verify the md5 sum and try to identify the failure mode.  I'd try to
> rule out hardware problems too.
> 
> Kris
> 

I made a volume that was under 2Tb and installed directly onto the
Areca rather than the ATA drive. This has now run without issue for 
a week. Strangely, I did the same test on the ATA drive prior to this
and it worked without issue for a week. Quite why it doesn't work with
the ATA as the boot device and the Areca as storage is beyond me.