From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Jan 30 7:59:24 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from out4.mx.nwbl.wi.voyager.net (out4.mx.nwbl.wi.voyager.net [169.207.1.77]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CF78C37B400 for ; Wed, 30 Jan 2002 07:59:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from shell.core.com (IDENT:2525@shell.voyager.net [169.207.1.89]) by out4.mx.nwbl.wi.voyager.net (8.11.1/8.11.4/1.7) with ESMTP id g0UFxK559361; Wed, 30 Jan 2002 09:59:20 -0600 (CST) Received: (from dpoland@localhost) by shell.core.com (8.11.6/8.11.6/1.3) id g0UFxJm03455; Wed, 30 Jan 2002 09:59:19 -0600 (CST) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 09:59:19 -0600 From: Doug Poland To: Espen Tagestad Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Softupdates ( why not to use on / fs ) Message-ID: <20020130095919.B26823@polands.org> References: <3C593C4A@epostleser.online.no> <20020130124756.A15728@modula.no> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20020130124756.A15728@modula.no>; from espen@modula.no on Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 12:47:56PM +0100 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 12:47:56PM +0100, Espen Tagestad wrote: > On Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 12:34:11PM +0100, Christer Gundersen wrote: > > As i read the RELEASE NOTES, i see that SOFTUPDATES will be activated by > > default under install. but it also says that it will not enable SOFTUPDATES on > > the root ( / ) fs . why? is that bad? > > Because with SoftUpdates read/write operations often delay, sometimes > up to 30 seconds before it's done. Then, if a machine crash occurs it > may lead to a larger loss of data. That can cause unrecoverable damage > to your system. > I can attest to that. Last week I changed my /etc/fstab. Immediatley after exiting vi, I mounted a floppy with a FAT filesystem with the intention of saving this important system file. I forgot to disable the write-protect tab on the floppy and simply popped the floppy out of the drive, switched the tab, and put it back in. When I did an ls /dev/fd0 my system hung. I reset the machine, the / partition had errors that fsck fixed. Unfortunately, /etc/fstab was gone. Ouch. It took me two hours to get my box up and running again. Lessons learned: 1. turn off softupdates on / 2. be VERY careful mounting/unmounting removable media 3. before disaster strikes... 4. have a fixit floppy/cd before #3 5. print portion of handbook dealing with Emergency Restore Procedures HTH, -- Regards, Doug To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message