Re: Egg on my face

[Len Budney]

Sam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, Russell Nelson wrote:
> 
> Well, hell, you'll probably lose mail even if you're running a
> journaling filesystem, like that.  Contrary to popular belief, a
> journaling fs does not guarantee that all of your data is intact,
> just that the integrity of the fs itself will not require a refsck
> after a crash.

False. Mail will not be lost if if rename() or link() (depending on
the software) offers the correct semantics: they should return only
after the operation has completed _on hardware_. That's true even with
soft updates (in which writes are ganged based on physical proximity
on disk).

Your point applies specifically to journalling filesystems with soft
updates which don't honor the traditional semantics.

Len.


--
Today's processors are not 1000 times bigger, they're 1000 times smaller.
The processors on your desktop are an abnormality.  Look at the ones in
your car.
                                        -- Bruce Schneier