From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Mar 24 11:19:10 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from cliff.i-plus.net (cliff.i-plus.net [209.100.20.42]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 00E0037B628 for ; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 11:19:05 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from troy@picus.com) Received: from arcadia (arcadia.i-plus.net [209.100.20.198]) by cliff.i-plus.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id OAA45579; Fri, 24 Mar 2000 14:18:52 -0500 (EST) From: "Troy Settle" To: "Eric J. Schwertfeger" Cc: Subject: RE: filesystem full? Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 14:18:20 -0500 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) In-Reply-To: X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6700 Importance: Normal Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Eric, Thanks for this explanation. It makes perfect sense. I'm still going to grumble though... it's the nature of it all :) -Troy ** -----Original Message----- ** From: Eric J. Schwertfeger [mailto:ejs@bfd.com] ** Sent: Friday, March 24, 2000 2:13 PM ** To: Troy Settle ** Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG ** Subject: RE: filesystem full? ** ** ** On Fri, 24 Mar 2000, Troy Settle wrote: ** ** > ** > ** > Hmm... bad taste to reply to one's own posts... but, I need to make a ** > correction: ** > ** > ** > ** If a process dies out, the kernel should release all ** resources used by that ** > ** process. The only processes using the /var filesystem, are the ** > ** default system ** > ** processes. I can't make any claims otherwise. ** > ** > After re-reading other replies, this should read: ** > ** > If a process has a file open, the kernel should not allow a user ** or another ** > process to delete said file. ** ** According to unix filesystem semantics, deleting a file that is in use is ** perfectly legitimate, and changing this would in fact break software. ** ** A file is a set of blocks on the disk pointed to by an inode. A directory ** entry is a pointer to the inode. When you open a file, the inode is ** resolved and the filename itself is no longer used. The distinction ** becomes critical in cases like this, or when dealing with hard links, ** which are multiple directory entries for the same inode. ** ** Now, when you delete or rename a file, you're not affecting the inode, but ** the directory entry. However, the inode usage count gets decremented, and ** when it drops to zero, the inode and associated blocks are considered ** free. ** ** Now, in the case where a program has a file open, the inode usage doesn't ** drop to 0 until the program closes the filehandle. ** ** Am I being clear? I've explained this to people that I work with, but ** email is different (no feedback, no gestures, etc). ** ** It's a simple concept, but one that isn't expected, so most people trip ** over it their first time. ** ** To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message