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Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 22:56:41 +1000 (EST)
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
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To: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@phk.freebsd.dk>
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cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: [Patch] mdmfs currently broken 
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On Fri, 5 Sep 2003, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:

> In message <20030905195552.I9319@gamplex.bde.org>, Bruce Evans writes:
>
> >> We should not revert to putting BSD labels on everything.
> >>
> >Disk labels are required by the not unused fsck_ffs utility to search
> >for alternate superblocks.
>
> You mean:
>
> The widely used fsck_ffs utility is able to use information from
> the optional BSD disklabel.

I mean:

The widely used fsck_ffs utility's ability to find alternate superblocks
will be broken when it is most needed if certain parts of disk labels or
equivalent metadata is not written automatically somewhere outside of
the file system proper.  Users who don't know what a disk label or an
alternate superblock is can't be expected to back them up or calculate
the correct block number to supply to fsck_ffs -b.  The file system info
in the label is a form of backup of a (very) few parameters.  The
alternate superblocks are another.

Bruce