Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Mon, 30 Apr 2001 04:47:13 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Mon, 30 Apr 2001 04:47:03 -0400 Received: from [194.128.63.73] ([194.128.63.73]:50571 "EHLO fuspcnjc.culham.ukaea.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Mon, 30 Apr 2001 04:46:48 -0400 Message-ID: <3AED26B0.8598C241@ukaea.org.uk> Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 09:47:44 +0100 From: Neil Conway Organization: UKAEA Fusion X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.18 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Linus Torvalds CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] SMP race in ext2 - metadata corruption. In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hiya. Linus Torvalds wrote: > So anybody who depends on "dump" getting backups right is already playing > russian rulette with their backups. It's not at all guaranteed to get the > right results - you may end up having stale data in the buffer cache that > ends up being "backed up". > > Dump was a stupid program in the first place. Leave it behind. Ouch. I just re-read the man page and it doesn't caution (*) against using it on mounted filesystems. That probably means that there are thousands of other losers like me using it on production machines. Volunteers to (a) change the man page, (b) talk to the distros about dumping "dump"? > However, it may be that in the long run it would be advantageous to have a > "filesystem maintenance interface" for doing things like backups and > defragmentation.. Yup, sounds good. Neil (*) The KNOWNBUGS file mentions "possible" problems while dumping active mounted filesystems, but I've (elsewhere) seen these characterised as no real problem; also, this falls a long way short of discouraging use in this fashion. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/