Your message dated Wed, 01 Jan 2014 11:21:41 -0500 with message-id <[email protected]> and subject line re: e2fsprogs: resize2fs -f should ignore missing mtab has caused the Debian Bug report #673323, regarding e2fsprogs: resize2fs -f should ignore missing mtab to be marked as done.
This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with. If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith. (NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what this message is talking about, this may indicate a serious mail system misconfiguration somewhere. Please contact [email protected] immediately.) -- 673323: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=673323 Debian Bug Tracking System Contact [email protected] with problems
--- Begin Message ---Package: e2fsprogs Version: 1.41.12-4stable1 Severity: wishlist resize2fs will abort if /etc/mtab does not exist, even if the -f option is given. I believe a missing /etc/mtab in general indicates that no filesystems are mounted, and it appears some umount's (busybox?) remove the mtab file after the last entry is unmounted. so it *should* be safe for resize2fs to proceed if mtab is missing, but at the very least I think -f should force resize2fs to continue in that case. right now one can get around this issue with a "touch /etc/mtab" before calling resize2fs, and then the -f isn't even needed. -- System Information: Debian Release: 6.0.5 APT prefers stable-updates APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable') Architecture: i386 (i686) Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core) Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash Versions of packages e2fsprogs depends on: ii e2fslibs 1.41.12-4stable1 ext2/ext3/ext4 file system librari ii libblkid1 2.17.2-9 block device id library ii libc6 2.11.3-3 Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib ii libcomerr2 1.41.12-4stable1 common error description library ii libss2 1.41.12-4stable1 command-line interface parsing lib ii libuuid1 2.17.2-9 Universally Unique ID library ii util-linux 2.17.2-9 Miscellaneous system utilities e2fsprogs recommends no packages. Versions of packages e2fsprogs suggests: pn e2fsck-static <none> (no description available) pn gpart <none> (no description available) ii parted 2.3-5 The GNU Parted disk partition resi -- no debconf information
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--- Begin Message ---tags 673323 +wontfix thanks If the /etc/mtab is missing, you can just touch it. Or better yet, populate it with the right information. Note also that e2fsprogs will check /proc/mounts if it is present. So the only time when this situation arises where it might make sense is (a) you are trying to resize a read-only root file system, and (b) for some reason, umount was stupid enough to remove /etc/mtab bewfore remounting the file system read-only. But it's not safe to resize the root file system, even if it is mounted read-only, unless you are doing an on-line resize (in which case it's OK if the file system is mounted read-write, BTS). But if /etc/mtab is missing, we can't do an on-line resize, since we need information about the location of the mountpoint in order to be able to do an on-line resize. Sure, we could guess that maybe the reason why /etc/mtab is missing is beause of a brain-dead umount and that the user was really trying to online resize the root file system, but that's not a guess that is really that safe to make. What if we're wrong? In any case, thinking about the balance between doing the right thing, and the costs if we get this wrong, and the fact that the user could just touch the darned /etc/mtab file if he/she is willing to insist on doing something stupid, I'm going to close this with a wontfix. - Ted
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