inode amnesia, no disk space and uucico

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5 total messages Started by Dave Mathis ELAN designs Fri, 23 Sep 1988 12:13

#856

Author: Dave Mathis ELAN designs
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1988 12:13

20 lines
1522 bytes

Recently my system lost some inodes and decided that the disk was full
(it wasn't).  In itself, that wasn't too disasterous, a simple set of
fsck's can take care of the results.  The real problem started when
uucico started up for a news feeding. There were still inodes available
so files could be created, but no writes on new files could succeed.
HOWEVER, it seems that uucico never checks to see if a write to a TM*
file succeeds, it just kept receiving news, not being able to write it
and responding to the other system that the file was OK.
	This has happened on a few occasions, and by loosing the free list,
having the file system really fill up, or by a bad write/sector 
confusing the file system.  In general, I think this is antisocial 
behavior and would expect that uucico would either hang up the conversation
or tell the other system that the receive didn't go so well.
	So, can anyone explain to me what is really happening, and if there 
 is a way to prevent this.  The system is  SCO Xenix 2.2 (286) on a real
 IBM AT. 


Dave Mathis                    UUCP oliveb!elandes!dave

Re: inode amnesia, no disk space and uucico

#858

Author: R. Craig Peterson
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 1988 01:34

28 lines
1680 bytes

In article <585@elandes.UUCP> dave@elandes.UUCP (Dave Mathis @ ELAN designs) writes:

>Recently my system lost some inodes and decided that the disk was full
>(it wasn't).  In itself, that wasn't too disasterous, a simple set of
>fsck's can take care of the results.  The real problem started when
 ....
> is a way to prevent this.  The system is  SCO Xenix 2.2 (286) on a real
> IBM AT. 

>Dave Mathis                    UUCP oliveb!elandes!dave

There is a known bug in most UNIX releases that causes systems to
loose track of free inodes when there are alot of file
deletions/creations, as is the case with running news.

I don't remember the details of the actual problem, but you would
certainly need source to the kernel file system code in order to fix
it.  Maybe Microsoft/SCO has a fix to this problem.  If not, you will
have to go on fsck'ing.

BTW I think a corrected code fragment was posted to the net, give or
take a year ago...  I don't know if I still have it around.

This is one bug that isn't unique to XENIX.
-- 
R. Craig Peterson (N8INO)
mcdchg!n8ino!craig	craig@n8ino.UUCP
E Pluribus Unum 	(NSA stuff - terrorist, DES, cipher, secret, NRO, CIA)

Re: inode amnesia, no disk space and uucico

#859

Author: D. Mathis
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 1988 13:25

26 lines
1694 bytes

In article <58@n8ino.UUCP>, craig@n8ino.UUCP (R. Craig Peterson ) writes:
: In article <585@elandes.UUCP> dave@elandes.UUCP (Dave Mathis @ ELAN designs) writes:
: 
: :Recently my system lost some inodes and decided that the disk was full
: :(it wasn't).  In itself, that wasn't too disasterous, a simple set of
: :fsck's can take care of the results.  The real problem started when
: :Dave Mathis                    UUCP oliveb!elandes!dave
: 
: There is a known bug in most UNIX releases that causes systems to
: loose track of free inodes when there are alot of file
: deletions/creations, as is the case with running news.
: 
: BTW I think a corrected code fragment was posted to the net, give or
: take a year ago...  I don't know if I still have it around.
: 
: R. Craig Peterson (N8INO)

I guess I didn't make my main concern evident.  The real problem is not
the lost inodes, I know that at times the kernel loses track of the free
list.  The REAL PROBLEM is that uucico doesn't check for valid writes
when it is receiving files, thereby creating any number of 'valid' 0 length
files.  I beleive it should fail on the write and fail on the receive. 


-- 
	Dave Mathis, ELAN designs           UUCP  ...oliveb!elandes!dave

Re: inode amnesia, no disk space and uucico

#861

Author: John Mackin
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1988 08:46

18 lines
1105 bytes

In article <58@n8ino.UUCP> craig@n8ino.UUCP (R. Craig Peterson (n8ino)) writes:

> There is a known bug in most UNIX releases that causes systems to
> loose track of free inodes when there are alot of file
> deletions/creations, as is the case with running news.

Absolutely incorrect.  Change `most UNIX releases' into `some
releases of System V' for the correct version.

> This is one bug that isn't unique to XENIX.

No, just unique to System V.  `Consider it broken.'

John Mackin, Basser Department of Computer Science,
	     University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

john@basser.oz.AU (john%basser.oz.AU@UUNET.UU.NET)
{uunet,mcvax,ukc,nttlab}!munnari!basser.oz!john

Re: inode amnesia, no disk space and uucico

#864

Author: Larry Campbell
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1988 18:21

10 lines
1033 bytes

In article <587@elandes.UUCP> dave@elandes.UUCP (D. Mathis) writes:
}
}I guess I didn't make my main concern evident.  The real problem is not
}the lost inodes, I know that at times the kernel loses track of the free
}list.  The REAL PROBLEM is that uucico doesn't check for valid writes
}when it is receiving files, thereby creating any number of 'valid' 0 length
}files.  I beleive it should fail on the write and fail on the receive. 

Get Honey DanBer.  Probably the single most winning feature of HDB is that
it Does The Right Thing when the disk fills up.

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