Re: Disk maintenance
On Sat, Jan 09, 1999 at 09:49:11PM +, Christian Lavoie wrote: I've got a single ext2fs partition, so it is the root partition. That's the one I need to defrag/scan, so even having it mounted as read only won't help. (At least for the defrag) So as far as I can tell I need either: - A win95/dos based tool to defragment a linux partition (yeah right) - A floppy (or CD-ROM) based dist that won't access my HD at all. (And has the adequate tools) - Another computer with linux installed. (Forget it) - A way to boot without any root partition. But then, how does UNIX administrator were dealing with such issues? How can one scan and/or defrag a ext2fs? If you have fat16 partition (DOS) and loadlin, then you can boot linux on RAM disk (like you boot it while installing Linux 1-st time on your computer). fat16 disk will be seen, so you can put there all necessary utilities. Sasha.
Re: Disk maintenance
On Sat, Jan 09, 1999 at 09:49:11PM +, Christian Lavoie wrote: I've got a single ext2fs partition, so it is the root partition. That's the one I need to defrag/scan, so even having it mounted as read only won't help. (At least for the defrag) So as far as I can tell I need either: - A win95/dos based tool to defragment a linux partition (yeah right) - A floppy (or CD-ROM) based dist that won't access my HD at all. (And has the adequate tools) - Another computer with linux installed. (Forget it) - A way to boot without any root partition. But then, how does UNIX administrator were dealing with such issues? How can one scan and/or defrag a ext2fs? Hmmm. I think you should be able to defrag the root while it's mounted read-only, as long as the defrag tool knows to flush the cache afterwards. You can fsck the root while it's mounted no problem. You're right for fsck, but not for defrag. So the problem still stands.
Re: Disk maintenance
Christian Lavoie wrote: On Sat, Jan 09, 1999 at 09:49:11PM +, Christian Lavoie wrote: I've got a single ext2fs partition, so it is the root partition. That's the one I need to defrag/scan, so even having it mounted as read only won't help. (At least for the defrag) So as far as I can tell I need either: - A win95/dos based tool to defragment a linux partition (yeah right) - A floppy (or CD-ROM) based dist that won't access my HD at all. (And has the adequate tools) - Another computer with linux installed. (Forget it) - A way to boot without any root partition. But then, how does UNIX administrator were dealing with such issues? How can one scan and/or defrag a ext2fs? Hmmm. I think you should be able to defrag the root while it's mounted read-only, as long as the defrag tool knows to flush the cache afterwards. You can fsck the root while it's mounted no problem. You're right for fsck, but not for defrag. So the problem still stands. Try toms self-contained boot/emergency disk. www.toms.net/~toehser/rb/ It has a load of Linux utilities on a single floppy disk. Mark panzer -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
Disk maintenance
What is the best way to defrag/scan disks? Mounted disks can't be defragged, and you can't umount the root partition, can you? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Disk maintenance
On Sat, Jan 09, 1999 at 01:32:02PM +, Christian Lavoie wrote: What is the best way to defrag/scan disks? Mounted disks can't be defragged, and you can't umount the root partition, can you? I don't know how to defrag a disk (you rarely need to anyway), but the following would work, for checking as well. Either boot up the system in `single' or `emergency' mode (at the LILO prompt, linux single or linux emergency). emergency in particular will mount the root read-only and enter single user mode. (I think single will mount all file systems read-write, and still enter single user mode.) Or you can shutdown the running system to single user mode; shutdown -h now will get you to single user mode. Then unmount partitions, and remount the root read only with mount -o remount,ro -n / To get the system back to multiuser, you can either reboot, or remount everything read/write and exit the single user shell. (I think the system goes back to multiuser in this situation). If you forget to remount as read write, it'll enter multiuser mode with the disk read/only, and you won't like that. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3TYD [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Latest Debian packages at ftp://ftp.rising.com.au/pub/hamish. PGP#EFA6B9D5 CCs of replies from mailing lists are welcome. http://hamish.home.ml.org
Re: Disk maintenance
On Sat, Jan 09, 1999 at 01:32:02PM +, Christian Lavoie wrote: What is the best way to defrag/scan disks? Mounted disks can't be defragged, and you can't umount the root partition, can you? I don't know how to defrag a disk (you rarely need to anyway), but the following would work, for checking as well. Either boot up the system in `single' or `emergency' mode (at the LILO prompt, linux single or linux emergency). emergency in particular will mount the root read-only and enter single user mode. (I think single will mount all file systems read-write, and still enter single user mode.) Or you can shutdown the running system to single user mode; shutdown -h now will get you to single user mode. Then unmount partitions, and remount the root read only with mount -o remount,ro -n / To get the system back to multiuser, you can either reboot, or remount everything read/write and exit the single user shell. (I think the system goes back to multiuser in this situation). If you forget to remount as read write, it'll enter multiuser mode with the disk read/only, and you won't like that. Hmmm... I've got a single ext2fs partition, so it is the root partition. That's the one I need to defrag/scan, so even having it mounted as read only won't help. (At least for the defrag) So as far as I can tell I need either: - A win95/dos based tool to defragment a linux partition (yeah right) - A floppy (or CD-ROM) based dist that won't access my HD at all. (And has the adequate tools) - Another computer with linux installed. (Forget it) - A way to boot without any root partition. But then, how does UNIX administrator were dealing with such issues? How can one scan and/or defrag a ext2fs?
Re: Disk maintenance
On Sat, Jan 09, 1999 at 09:49:11PM +, Christian Lavoie wrote: I've got a single ext2fs partition, so it is the root partition. That's the one I need to defrag/scan, so even having it mounted as read only won't help. (At least for the defrag) So as far as I can tell I need either: - A win95/dos based tool to defragment a linux partition (yeah right) - A floppy (or CD-ROM) based dist that won't access my HD at all. (And has the adequate tools) - Another computer with linux installed. (Forget it) - A way to boot without any root partition. But then, how does UNIX administrator were dealing with such issues? How can one scan and/or defrag a ext2fs? Hmmm. I think you should be able to defrag the root while it's mounted read-only, as long as the defrag tool knows to flush the cache afterwards. You can fsck the root while it's mounted no problem. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3TYD [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Latest Debian packages at ftp://ftp.rising.com.au/pub/hamish. PGP#EFA6B9D5 CCs of replies from mailing lists are welcome. http://hamish.home.ml.org
Disk Maintenance
What packages are used to repair logical disk errors (a Linux version of Norton Disk Doctor?) and to defragment my Linux partition? And how are they used? -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: Disk Maintenance
From: compwiz [EMAIL PROTECTED] What packages are used to repair logical disk errors The fsck program, which generally runs the e2fsck program. This will happen automaticaly when the system boots after crashing, etc. You generally don't have to concern yourself with it unless something is going wrong with your system and it stops on boot-up with a serious disk problem. and to defragment my Linux partition? There has been a defragmenter available, but I don't recommend it. First, the ext2fs filesystem we use is a high-performance filesystem and doesn't fragment at the drop of a hat the way the DOS FAT filesystem does. It uses cylinder groups to allocate rotationaly-optimal blocks to your file. After years of operation your ext2fs filesystem will probably be less than 5% fragmented - mine seem to be less than 1%. If you do want to defragment any partition, the best way is to: 1. Back it up (using anything _but_ a block-device copy). 2. Make a new filesystem. 3. Restore the backup to the new filesystem. However, you generally won't need to bother with this. Thanks Bruce -- Bruce Perens K6BP [EMAIL PROTECTED] 510-215-3502 Finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP public key. PGP fingerprint = 88 6A 15 D0 65 D4 A3 A6 1F 89 6A 76 95 24 87 B3 -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
