Theodore Y. Ts'o (tytso@MIT.EDU) writes:
> Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 11:58:55 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Andre Hedrick <andre@linux-ide.org>
>
> You mentioned that there is no way to actively update the badblocks list
> in EXT2. Can you explain or tell me how I can kludge around this?
> Also will EXT3 have this as a native feature?
>
> You can update it using e2fsck's -c, -l, or -L options.
>
> When the kernel detects a bad block, it's not so simple to just throw it
> into the badblocks list --- the block may very well likely be in use as
> filesystem metadata, or because it's in use as a file data block. It
> might be possible to have the kernel handle more of these cases
> automatically without requiring an fsck, but past a certain point,
> you're introducing *way* to much hair into the kernel.
The problem with this approach is, if you're working with systems that are up 24x7, to *not* have the ability to automatically detect a bad block, copy the data to another block, then mark that block as bad is a real pain at best and completely unacceptable at worst. One of my clients is using Linux in a network communications controller (SONET/ATM backplane) and this sort of thing is going to raise the pain level around here as soon as someone realizes that badblocks aren't taken case of.
On the bright side, if we have to do the code in-house, I'm pretty sure I can convince them to GPL the code such that the entire community can benefit from our work. :)
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Apr 15 2000 - 21:00:16 EST