From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Sep 3 23:53:54 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 33D7F16A4BF for ; Wed, 3 Sep 2003 23:53:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ns2.wananchi.com (ns2.wananchi.com [62.8.64.4]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 94A4943F93 for ; Wed, 3 Sep 2003 23:53:52 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wash@wananchi.com) Received: from wash by ns2.wananchi.com with local (Exim 4.22 #2 (FreeBSD)) id 19uo06-0007Qd-Ku for ; Thu, 04 Sep 2003 09:53:50 +0300 Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2003 09:53:50 +0300 From: ODHIAMBO Washington To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20030904065350.GA8216@ns2.wananchi.com> Mail-Followup-To: ODHIAMBO Washington , freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline X-Disclaimer: Any views expressed in this message,where not explicitly attributed otherwise, are mine alone!. X-Fortune: The world is coming to an end. Please log off. X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 4.8-STABLE i386 X-Best-Window-Manager: Blackbox X-Mailer: Mutt 1.5.4i (2003-03-19) X-Designation: Systems Administrator, Wananchi Online Ltd. X-Location: Nairobi, KE, East Africa. X-Uptime: 9:25AM up 13:37, 4 users, load averages: 1.23, 0.94, 0.81 User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.4i Subject: Weird DISKS behaviour on 4.8-STABLE X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2003 06:53:54 -0000 Hello people, I have been experiencing a weird problem with 4.8-STABLE for a long time. I was ignoring it, thinking that it was a problem with the SCSI disks or perhaps the contoller. I changed the disks from the original Intel box to a Compaq box and I still noticed the problem was there. What happened is that all of a sudden, the disk would 'fill' up with nothing! Yes, that's true. I would try to track down whatever it is but end up with nothing. So I decide to reboot. What would then happen is that during the reboot, the behaviour would be that akin to that which you always see when the system was abnormally shutdown - salvage of blocks, etc. Then as sure as day follows night, the space is back to normal. At some point I retired two disks, replacing them with two new ones. Now on the same Compaq box, I am still experiencing the same symptoms. For starters, `mount` does not report the correct disk sizes: da0 is 17GB da1 is 36GB but `df -h` gives following output Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/da0s1a 16G 4.5G 10.0G 31% / /dev/da1s1e 34G 17G 13G 56% /wananchi The output of `mount` is: wash@ns2 ('tty') ~ 129 -> mount /dev/da0s1a on / (ufs, local, soft-updates) /dev/da1s1e on /wananchi (ufs, local, soft-updates) I am beginning to think that disk space is being freed, but the blocks are not being reallocated/reassigned, leading to the misbehaviour. I don't know what the correct terminology would be ;) I am not an expert with disks though, so I would appreciate any insight into what the cause of such a problem could be. -Wash -- Odhiambo Washington "The box said 'Requires Wananchi Online Ltd. www.wananchi.com Windows 95, NT, or better,' Tel: +254 2 313985-9 +254 2 313922 so I installed FreeBSD." GSM: +254 72 743223 +254 733 744121 This sig is McQ! :-) Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"