Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Mon, 19 Aug 2002 11:20:51 -0400
From:      Michael Lucas <mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org>
To:        Chris Pepper <pepper@reppep.com>
Cc:        =?iso-8859-1?Q?Aur=E9lien_Nephtali?= <aurelien.nephtali@wanadoo.fr>, stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: root (/) not soft-updates by default ?
Message-ID:  <20020819112051.A14802@blackhelicopters.org>
In-Reply-To: <a05200603b986b8c719fa@[129.85.219.160]>; from pepper@reppep.com on Mon, Aug 19, 2002 at 11:03:09AM -0400
References:  <20020819144928.GA6628@nebula.wanadoo.fr> <20020819105452.A14530@blackhelicopters.org> <a05200603b986b8c719fa@[129.85.219.160]>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help

Well, originally, I had read the message, but not the subject, so I
hadn't caught that this was root-only.  :)

Apparently at some time in the last couple of releases, soft-updates
has become the default.  I gather that the person who made this change
expects every user to understand this intuitively, or that the
overwhelming majority of FreeBSD users are running SCSI.  :-(

ata(4) has instructions on how to disable write caching, and if you do
a search on IDE write caching and soft updates, you should get *lots*
of messages about this issue.  Also some stuff in tuning(7).

On Mon, Aug 19, 2002 at 11:03:09AM -0400, Chris Pepper wrote:
> At 10:54 AM -0400 2002/08/19, Michael Lucas wrote:
> >Hello,
> >
> >Soft updates does not work well with IDE controllers with write
> >caching enabled; you can cause data loss.
> >
> >Most IDE controllers ship with write caching enabled.
> >
> >We won't, by default, ship systems which have an unacceptable risk of
> >data loss.  :-)
> 
> 	Okay, then I'll ask the next question. Why is this acceptable 
> on /usr, /var, or other mount points? My 'data' is likely to be 
> everywhere *but* /.
> 
> 	If we should be disabling write caching on IDE installations, 
> can you point me to instructions for the procedure? I'd like to call 
> it out more in the docs.
> 
> 
> 						Thanks,
> 
> 
> 						Chris Pepper
> 
> >On Mon, Aug 19, 2002 at 04:49:28PM +0200, Aurélien Nephtali wrote:
> >>  Hello,
> >>
> >>  What is the reason that the mount point (by default, /) hasn't the flag
> >>  for soft-updates by default (during the installation), can I set it
> >  > without data lost ?
> 
> -- 
> Chris Pepper:               <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>;
> Rockefeller University:     <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>;

-- 
Michael Lucas		mwlucas@FreeBSD.org, mwlucas@BlackHelicopters.org
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/q/Big_Scary_Daemons

           Absolute BSD:   http://www.AbsoluteBSD.com/

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20020819112051.A14802>