On Thursday, December 17, 2015 at 12:40:41 PM UTC-5, Nikolaus Rath wrote:
>
> On Dec 17 2015, Jamie Fargen <[email protected] <javascript:>> wrote: 
> > On Thursday, December 17, 2015 at 11:03:54 AM UTC-5, Nikolaus Rath 
> wrote: 
> >> 
> >> On Dec 17 2015, Jamie Fargen <[email protected] <javascript:>> wrote: 
> >> > I noticed that an s3ql file system was down and when I tried to mount 
> it 
> >> > the mount failed and the error stated that s3ql.fsck needed to be 
> >> executed. 
> >> > While running the fsck many messages like Deleted spurious object 
> >> 245444, 
> >> > were received. 
> >> > 
> >> > This is the final output of the fsck: 
> >> > Deleted spurious object 245442 
> >> > Deleted spurious object 245443 
> >> > Deleted spurious object 245444 
> >> [...] 
> >> > 
> >> > After the fsck finished I remounted the file system and all the files 
> >> are 
> >> > now missing. 
> >> > 
> >> > Looking at the object container it had 2T of data before the fsck and 
> >> now 
> >> > only has a few megabytes. 
> >> 
> >> Sounds like the mount crashed before any metadata was uploaded, and you 
> >> then ran fsck.s3ql with a different --cachedir (or you also lost the 
> >> cache directory, or you ran it on a different computer). 
> > 
> > How can one improve metadata consistency and ensure that it is uploaded 
> > regularly? 
>
> mount.s3ql --help will tell you. 
>
> > Why isn't metadata atomic? 
>
> Data cannot be atomic, only a process can be atomic. But I guess what 
> you are really asking is why the metadata isn't uploaded on every 
> change. The answer is that it would be way too slow, cf. 
> http://www.rath.org/s3ql-docs/impl_details.html. 
>
>
> > When I mount the volume I do specify a --cachedir, but when I ran fsck I 
> > did not specify the cachedir. 
>
> That was not a good idea. If you had specified the cachedir, you 
> wouldn't have lost any of the data. Note that you must have seen the 
> following warning from fsck.s3ql: 
>
>
>               Backend reports that file system is still mounted elsewhere. 
> Either the file system 
>               has not been unmounted cleanly or the data has not yet 
> propagated through the backend. 
>               In the later case, waiting for a while should fix the 
> problem, in the former case you 
>               should try to run fsck on the computer where the file system 
> has been mounted most 
>               recently. 
>
>               Enter "continue" to use the outdated data anyway: 
>
> I'm not sure how to make it more explicit that this is a dangerous 
> operation. Note that you had to enter "continue" - it wasn't enough to 
> just press enter or 'y'. 
>
>
> > The cachedir only has about 7.5GB of data vs 2TB of data lost. Why would 
> > missing cached data result in losing 100% of the file system? 
>
> Because there is no way to determine what of the 2 TB of data belongs to 
> which files in what order without the 7.5 GB of metadata. See 
> http://www.rath.org/s3ql-docs/impl_details.html. 
>
>
> Best, 
> -Nikolaus 
>
> -- 
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>
>              »Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a Banana.« 
>

I hope this isn't a silly question. Is the cachedir and metadata both 
stored in the same directory?

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