This has happened on _rare_ occasions (rare likely because I am UPS
backed-up and
usually only run even series kernels on this particular machine).
But the problem is thus. I'll write to a file -- pre-existing file or,
I think
has happened on new files as well. I write them to disk and think
nothing more
of them....
Then...a _few_ days pass... (file if often recoverable from
backups!)...and system
crashes (like UPS not charged...minor details...may be getting near
EOL)...whatever.
Maybe just a mysterious crash no-apparent details -- but what is screwey
is that some files will be filled with binary zeros, or sections of files
will be filled with binary zeros. Huh? I know in this last case, the
file that
croked was my fstab (slightly inconvenient) I'd edited a few _days_
prior. Filename
was still there but filled with all zeros. Sometimes I'll find other
files...log
files and such that also are zeroed out.
Is there any circumstance where xfs wouldn't actually write something to
disk for
a few days?
Not just for xfs, but I wish there was a user command to sync all
buffers to disk on
the system. Sync used to do that but with delayed writes and multiple
buffering
schemes -- even mounting some fs's "async" so a specific program won't
slow down, but
something other than "umount" since that requires, sometimes, shutting
down the
machine. But I know it had been 2-3 days since I wrote to that file
before the system
crashed. It might have been open for read in the middle of a send crash
(was
testing circuits to do some wiring). Might that be a reason? Though
I'm sure
I've had it happen on files like ".profile", or something like that that
wouldn't
have been getting read but that had been changed hours or days earlier.
VERY rare, this happens, and it happens randomly -- other files I wrote
to after
that file were fine. so I dunno what gives...
weird -- but just wanted to know if any one else has seen any such
weirdness.
I saw this under 2.4 patched kernels as well as the more recent 2.6.5
kernel....
-l
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