# constant MASSIVE data/files losses on HDD!



## Seeker (Jan 15, 2010)

Now THAT DOES IT!
I swear a god, that this thread will have a grand impact on my decision, will I dump FreeBSD, most possibly for eternity! x(

When NOT properly shutdown (ie: sudden power loss, sys hangs due to bug in code, so I need to turn of power or reset), destruction that happens to DATA on hdd is *out of normal comprehension!*

Recent immense destruction that spilled my glass of patience:
Sys: FreeBSD 8-STABLE
At boot time: (it happens each 8th time approx. ), it hangs on ugenX.X line at usbusX, when it detects my Novatel Wireless mobile broadband 3g adapter OR ugenX.X line at usbusX, with some other device.
This hang NEVER happened on 7.X branch, so I suspect this has to do with 8.X's USB code rewrite.

Lastly, I've figured out, that I can avoid this hang, if I use hardware switch on my laptop, in order to physically turn of WLAN, bluetooth and 3G adapter.

So...
THIS caused, a massive loss, in /boot/kernel dir, of MANY *.ko AND *.ko.symbols files.
Also disappeared many /libexec/* files -> RESULT -> I can't run ALMOST any app installed from port!!!

Also disappeared many /bin/* files -> RESULT -> I can't rebuild world and kernel anymore! -> WHICH WAS PANACEA BEFORE!!

Now what?!

Now this situation NEVER happened on WinXP Pro SP3 - NEVER!
I can turn off power, reset, unplug the power cord and in WORST CASE I will ONLY loose data I've been working on ATM on WinXP!
I won't loose critical sys data/files that would render OS unbotable / unusable!

From my point of view, loss of data/files is HERESY!
And especially at *this level/rate* makes me dump ANY OS, at start immediately!
As any further usage attempts of that OS, forward on, is a complete waste of time, as in it's start/root, is faulty.
So anything you do, create is NULLED! x(

Now I simply wana comprehend this UNLOGIC sickness!
At boot time - data is being read and executed against critical sys files that are NEVER modified(read and execute are exactly perms of disappeared sys files). Nothing is being written to them!
*So HOW CAN THEY BE ERRASED AT BOOT TIME FROM HDD!?!*
Log files, are being written for examples. SO I would ubderstand if THEY are gone!

SOFT UPDATES - in case of a crash, files could be several seconds (even a minute!) behind updating the physical disk.

To me... the only logical explanation, is the most idiotic as well, for alpha and omega OS - THE FreeBSD. And is:
At boot time: critical sys files are pulled from HDD in memory, in a way that they are erased from HDD, before putting them in a memory, so if power outage happens, they don't exist in memory as well as on HDD anymore.

How else to explain such immense data loose?? :\


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## LateNiteTV (Jan 15, 2010)

7x is going to be supported for years to come... so go back to 7.2?


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## graudeejs (Jan 15, 2010)

Hmm, I think I had something similar with UFS+Soft-Updates updates...

But one thing you should note:
as much as I have read it's *always* recommended to leave root with SU turned off.

Another option is to go with zfs, I haven't lost a single bit since I started using it


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## oliverh (Jan 15, 2010)

@killasmurf

>Another option is to go with zfs, I haven't lost a single bit since I started using it 

Do you read any of the mailing lists by chance? These are full of problems regarding ZFS. You should at least use 8-stable, there are lots of important fixes for ZFS in it. ZFS is _somewhat_ mature, but in my opionion it's not ready for the majority of hardware.

That said, release 8.0 isn't as mature as 7.0 or 6.0. There are way more people having massive problems with it, especially with the new usb stack. I don't have any, but this doesn't change my observations.


@seeker 

>SOFT UPDATES - in case of a crash, files could be several seconds (even a minute!) behind updating the physical disk.

You'll experience the same "problem" with e.g. ext4 or xfs on Linux.

https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/317781/comments/45



> So, what is the problem. POSIX fundamentally says that what happens if the system is not shutdown cleanly is undefined. If you want to force things to be stored on disk, you must use fsync() or fdatasync(). There may be performance problems with this, which is what happened with FireFox 3.0[1] --- but that's why POSIX doesn't require that things be synched to disk as soon as the file is closed.



Seems that UFS2 is following the same definition.


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## LateNiteTV (Jan 15, 2010)

from handbook section 11.12.2


> Soft Updates drastically improves meta-data performance, mainly file creation and deletion, through the use of a memory cache. *We recommend to use Soft Updates on all of your file systems*.



why do you want to have softupdates turned off for /?

edit: just saw oliverh's post.
thanks.


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## oliverh (Jan 15, 2010)

LateNiteTV said:
			
		

> from handbook section 11.12.2
> 
> 
> why do you want to have softupdates turned off for /?
> ...





> Long answer: There used to be some concern over using softupdates on the root partition. Softupdates has two characteristics that caused this. First, a softupdates partition has a small chance of losing data during a system crash. (The partition will not be corrupted; the data will simply be lost.) Also, softupdates can cause temporary space shortages.



http://www.unixguide.net/freebsd/faq/09.04.shtml


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## Seeker (Jan 15, 2010)

Hey guys, thanks for your fast responses.
But that still doesn't explains:


			
				Seeker said:
			
		

> ...
> At boot time - data is being read and executed against critical sys files that are NEVER modified(read and execute are exactly perms of disappeared sys files). Nothing is being written to them!
> *So HOW CAN THEY BE ERRASED AT BOOT TIME FROM HDD!?!*
> Log files, are being written for examples. SO I would ubderstand if THEY are gone!
> ...


I didn't had soft updates enabled on / (root)
I did had soft updates enabled on /usr /var /tmp

Result:
EACH mount point was struck, with file loss!
Yes, *even a root* which had *turned off* soft updates.

Now I *turned off* soft updates everywhere, except for /tmp


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## oliverh (Jan 15, 2010)

>Yes, even a root which had turned off soft updates.

If there isn't any possibility of a hardware-failure, submit a PR.

http://www.freebsd.org/send-pr.html


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## expl (Jan 15, 2010)

This kind of loss can not be explained by UFS2 mechanics. Data does not simply disappear on UFS2 even with soft updates on (files that have not been flushed will still have old data). UFS2 does not suffer from same behavior that most linux based file systems have - complete loss of data on any files that have not been flushed before crash. Your HDD might have been damaged as the result of power surge/loss.


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## Aprogas (Jan 15, 2010)

Have you verified that this isn't a hardware failure? Try something like smartmontools to read health information from the device.

Have you been doing something like installworld shortly before a power interruption?

I am also assuming you didn't put any async flags in fstab, if you did remove them.


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## dennylin93 (Jan 16, 2010)

I've experienced numerous power losses, but I haven't had any major data loss with UFS yet. It's possible that hardware failure is causing this.


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## phoenix (Jan 16, 2010)

oliverh said:
			
		

> killasmurf said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You have to wonder, though, how many people out there are using ZFS without any issues worthy of sending to a mailing list?  My totally random guess would be at least 10:1.    Remember, very few people stand up to praise things, but everyone and their dog will jump and up down to complain about things.  

We've been using ZFS on two servers for 15 months now, handling 10 TB of data on each server, without any data loss due to ZFS (we lost some due to incorrectly creating a single 24-drive raidz2 vdev which could not resilver a replaced harddrive).  We've even replaced 6 out of 8 drives in one raidz2 vdev, in preparation for adding 3 TB of disk space to the pool, without any issues.  Shoot, we started using ZFS as soon as it hit 7.x, and haven't had any issues with ZFS itself.

You can't always use mailing list posts as true gauge of how "bad" or even how "good" something is, as they tend to be self-selecting on the negative side.


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## Seeker (Jan 16, 2010)

oliverh said:
			
		

> >Yes, even a root which had turned off soft updates.
> 
> If there isn't any possibility of a hardware-failure, submit a PR.
> 
> http://www.freebsd.org/send-pr.html


That is highly unlikely and I would be VERY surprised to find a hardware-failure, simply because this laptop is "de la Creme" of it's kind --> Dell Latitude series and I have it's strongest and best equipped model D830.

It is dualboot with WinXP SP3 (my favorite Win flavor, 2 years and still stable, without reinstall)
fstab is default/generic, so no async stuff there.



			
				dennylin93 said:
			
		

> ...
> It's possible that hardware failure is causing this.


Unlikely, as this HDD has even crash / falling sensor, for physical damage resistance.

Also, I haven't been doing an installkernel or installworld.
I've just turned off power, at hanging boot, as explained at first post.

_Aprogas_ ->
I can't try smartmontools, as I can't install any ports anymore.
However, *dd* survived, so I am using it now like:

```
# dd if=/dev/ad4 of=/dev/null
```
I've left _bs_ arg to it's default value of 512 bytes.
Now this will take some time, so I'll see results in a morning.


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## fronclynne (Jan 16, 2010)

dennylin93 said:
			
		

> I've experienced numerous power losses, but I haven't had any major data loss with UFS yet. It's possible that hardware failure is causing this.



Meh, I've lost /var/db/pkg/ in a power failure.  But yeah, if someone is losing files from / when they haven't been doing an installkernel or installworld they have something very wrong.


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## thomas (Jan 16, 2010)

I notice that the system you are using is 8-STABLE and not 8-RELEASE.  This is said to cause problems.  If you were to try again, you should at least use a RELEASE branch.

As an aside, this does not answer your issue, but the only reason I have ever read for not using SOFT-UPDATES on root was the amount of extra space used.  I have used (or not used) SU on root with 2Gb and 4Gb root filesystems.  Never had a problem, even with accidental power failure.

Your kernel files data are not 'disappearing into memory' but it seems the filesystem inodes are getting hosed which has the same effect.  While there could be many reasons for this filesystem corruption to occur, may I suggest you carefully examine the options and flags you set for compiling the kernel (or boot GENERIC); specifically, while the Dell machines are quite good, the support for laptops in FreeBSD is weak (IMO) due to the closed nature of laptops.  Which may include the USB support (not an expert, just where I would look).

So if your machine is hosed anyway, try installing 8.0-RELEASE, boot GENERIC, then turn power off (or remove battery or something) to cause a failure and see if your data is gone again.  Do this before you spend the time to install too many apps and so on...


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## expl (Jan 16, 2010)

Seeker said:
			
		

> I've just turned off power, at hanging boot, as explained at first post.



At what step did this hanging occur in the booting process? Because if mounting file systems is imposable FreeBSD will start fsck in the background with no echo and wait for it to finish (it might feel like a hangup but its not). If you turned power off at this step this could very well explain why you lost data.


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## oliverh (Jan 16, 2010)

@phoenix

>You can't always use mailing list posts as true gauge of how "bad" or even how "good" something is, as they tend to be self-selecting on the negative side.

Sure, but you can perhaps see some kind of tendency especially regarding a rather young filesystem. Many PR's and fixes (see stable) perfect the picture of it. That said, I'm using it without any problems, but then again this single conclusion doesn't prove anything.


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## Seeker (Jan 16, 2010)

Ok guys, here is a result of HDD testing:

```
# dd if=/dev/ad4 of=/dev/null 
312581808+0 records in
312581808+0 records out
160041885696 bytes transferred in 38896.991778 secs (4114505 bytes/sec)
```



			
				expl said:
			
		

> At what step did this hanging occur in the booting process? Because if mounting file systems is imposable FreeBSD will start fsck in the background with no echo and wait for it to finish (it might feel like a hangup but its not). If you turned power off at this step this could very well explain why you lost data.


As I said...
At step where it hits: ugenX.X line at usbusX...
Nothing has been mounted at this time

PS: To all of you: OS is 8-STABLE with GENERIC kernel! Nothing custom here.


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## richardpl (Jan 16, 2010)

Here is my fstab on 9.0-CURRENT


```
/dev/ad0s1a / ufs ro,sync,noatime 1 1
/dev/ad0s1b /var ufs rw,async,noatime,noexec,nosuid 1 2
/dev/ad0s1d /tmp ufs rw,async,noatime,noexec,nosuid 1 2
/dev/ad0s1e /usr/home ufs rw,async,noatime,noexec,nosuid 1 2
/dev/ad0s1f /usr/local ufs ro,async,noatime 1 2
/dev/ad0s1g /usr/src ufs ro,async,noatime,noexec,nosuid 1 2
/dev/ad0s1h /usr/obj ufs ro,async,noatime 1 2
/dev/ad0s1i /usr/ports ufs ro,async,noatime,nosuid 1 2
/dev/ad0s1j none swap sw 0 0
proc /proc procfs rw,noauto 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs rw,noauto 0 0
fdescfs /dev/fd fdescfs rw,noauto 0 0
```
As you can see I use async and my kernel doesn't have softupdates support enabled or journaling, just dirhash, and this is on laptop.

I experienced thousands of crash, panic, hang (because that's normal with my work-flow) and I never lost single kernel file not even mentioning libc files.
I disabled background fsck and use:

```
background_fsck="NO"
fsck_y_enable="YES"
fsck_y_flags="-C"
```

You have /rescue by the way, shame it doesnt have fetch or nc.

BTW don't fsck with fsck.


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## Beastie (Jan 16, 2010)

Seeker, I suggest you do what Thomas proposed.

Unless you absolutely need STABLE (which I really doubt), stick to RELEASE. Keep it up to date with freebsd-update(8) if you use GENERIC.

Also do you have any USB device (e.g. printer, scanner, etc.) already plugged-in when you power the machine up?


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## Seeker (Jan 16, 2010)

So..., 
	
	



```
background_fsck="NO"
fsck_y_enable="YES"
fsck_y_flags="-C"
```
This will actually, make me to SEE, what is going on, IF sys WASN'T properly dismounted.


> BTW don't fsck with fsck.


Why? And what should I use instead of fsck?


			
				Beastie said:
			
		

> ...
> Also do you have any USB device (e.g. printer, scanner, etc.) already plugged-in when you power the machine up?


Nope, except usb radio transmitter of logitech wireless mouse.


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## Seeker (Jan 17, 2010)

All of you, that are recommending STABLE -> RELEASE transfer:
Ok I'll do it, BUT, before I do it, I wana catch source of problem and if reason is in STABLE code, then I'll fill a PR.

Now this is the infidel, caught red handed:
http://www.starforce.biz/doomed.jpg
Once I left it for 1 hour and nada!

Now I've immediately went into single user mode, after this as I know, what has happend, just to run *fsck*.

Hell, I was right! */root*/.config/qtx..., bla, bla, got some files disappeared AND */usr* got some files disappeared

I wana catch *something*, that is erasing files(data itself or metadata, but hell! Effect is same) in a background during freeze from url!

Gosh! I fill like I am on CURRENT and not on STABLE.


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## richardpl (Jan 17, 2010)

boot into verbose mode, and/or use serial console, so you can enter kdb early, during boot. All of this is explained in the handbook.

But you didn't show anything which could claim that problem is in kernel and not in rc.d scripts.


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## Beastie (Jan 17, 2010)

Seeker said:
			
		

> Ok I'll do it, BUT, before I do it, I wana catch source of problem and if reason is in STABLE code, then I'll fill a PR.


Or try RELEASE right away to make sure it's something in STABLE and not common to both, then check what was added since RELEASE and report the problem.




			
				Seeker said:
			
		

> Gosh! I fill like I am on CURRENT and not on STABLE.


STABLE is not guaranteed to work 100%, all the time. It may not even compile. And even RELEASE may have bugs. Programmers are not infallible. From the handbook:


> 24.5.2.1 What Is FreeBSD-STABLE?
> [...]
> This is _still_ a development branch, however, and this means that at any given time, the sources for FreeBSD-STABLE may or may not be suitable for any particular purpose. It is simply another engineering development track, not a resource for end-users.
> 
> ...


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## Jago (Jan 17, 2010)

I feel your pain as I've had to deal with similar issues during the days of 5.3 - 5.4. Things like this go both ways however...

In my case, I was lose data seemingly at random, even on clean shutdowns and reboots. A clean install would work, then it would lose more and more data with each reboot until it would eventually fall over and die. Enraged, I wiped off FreeBSD and installed Windows on it and was sure FreeBSD was to blame, since after all, Windows worked just fine, right? That is... until 2 weeks later the drive in question finally took the final epic dump and refused to do ANYTHING. Lesson learned: Windows is a little bit more reslient to silent data corruption, NTFS will continue working longer than UFS when such events occur, but on another hand, seeing seemingly "out of nowhere" dataloss should've given me the hint that it was a hardware issue.

That being said, there are some cases where UFS is indeed at fault. As previously mentioned, there can be some (supposedly extremely rare) cases where having softupdates enabled can cause loss of data on a sudden system reboot. Some of these issues are finally being looked at right now: first there is the option of using GJournal. And finally, I am reading on the mailing lists that right now "softupdates with built-in journaling" are being tested. When this goes live and ends up in a -RELEASE, it will be automatic and little to no changes to your system will be needed (like with gjournal).

That being said, I hope that FreeBSD will be moving towards using GPT and ZFS by default as soon as possible (leaving the older options available as an alternative). Sadly, sysinstall is such a spaghetti mess of code that nobody really wants to touch it with a 10 feet pole and unfortunately it seems that installers in general are something that people with the know-how care the least about working on.


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## Seeker (Jan 17, 2010)

Well, in my case hardware is very resistant and I tested it, so no problems there.

Loss of files ONLY happens IF hang during boot, happens.
Once successfully booted system, will not suffer file loss, even if I forcefully turn off power.

I will soon try verbose mode, but I need to catch that hang.

Then I'll install RELEASE.


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## Seeker (Jan 18, 2010)

richardpl said:
			
		

> boot into verbose mode, and/or use serial console, so you can enter kdb early, during boot. All of this is explained in the handbook.
> 
> But you didn't show anything which could claim that problem is in kernel and not in rc.d scripts.



Ok, I Booted FreeBSD with verbose logging
Looks that hang appears at the start of init.

Any last recommendations, before I start installation of RELEASE 8

PS: As further files got deleted, now I can't startx


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## yks (Jan 19, 2010)

The problem may be neither hardware nor freebsd-related.
Once I have experienced this sort of trouble after I messed with partitions using third-party tools in windows(tm). Some tool (maybe even windows(tm) stock "disk administration service") wrote wrong data to the partition table and the FreeBSD partition became "smaller". It did boot, however, and filesystems got mounted, and there were some files left, but fsck failed and even newfs later said that "partition is larger than available space" or sort of.
To my understanding, it's impossible for a kernel to overwrite data between actual loading of the kernel and actual mounting of filesystems. And if the kernel hangs before FS gets mounted, then it's highly unlikely to be the cause of FS damage. To what degree a system must be crap, to allow files to be deleted  
Imho, it must have been either a result of usage of some low-level HDD tools, including dd, or a failure of disk controller, which is subject to failure, regardless what brand and price your PC is.


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## Dru (Jan 19, 2010)

Meh...Im just getting back here, and dont really have anything important to add, but have to say myself, that its a little disappointing at how easy it is to lose data with UFS. Ive had numerous power outages on my Exchange cluster, and those babies pop right back online, if I was using FreeBSD, it would all be shot by now.

That being said, Ive been a little bored lately, and have been booting over to Vista this past week to play some games that wont run on Wine, and what a pile it is, after using FreeBSD, I absolutely dislike going back to Windows.

All these years of development, and its still this easy to hose an install, I honestly cant believe something hasnt been done by now about how easy it is to lose data, on a sever OS. Sure in a server environment, backups, and redundant power should be in place, but what about the small biz owner that might be not have all the cash to invest in the hardware initially, to provide the redundancy, or the specs to run ZFS decently. Have been yanking cords on Win boxes for over 8 years now, and they always still work.

I love FreeBSD, and wouldnt want to run anything else, but it just seems a bit nuts to me.


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## graudeejs (Jan 19, 2010)

One word [and smiley]: gjournal(8)


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## Seeker (Jan 19, 2010)

Ok guys, I did it!
I've _downgraded_ from 8.0-STABLE to 8.0-RELEASE-p2

No more hangs, at boot time and file erasures. 
So, just to be safe, I did same to my server.

But really, when you loose files on UFS then you REALLY LOOSE FILES! Worse then with NTFS.

Now, why is there no warning in handbook for UFS??
They just state: "fs might appear just a little older"!

And if I'am asked *file integrity is exactly the most important for servers -> definitively more than for Win / ntfs / desktops*


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## Beastie (Jan 20, 2010)

NTFS has the USN (Update Sequence Number) journal, which is the Windows version of what killasmurf86 posted right above your post.

If you're so concerned about your filesystem's consistency and your files' safety, enable journaling, stick to a RELEASE and make multiple backups in different physical locations.

UFS in itself has no problem whatsoever. I've never lost a single block in years even if I had many freezes caused by human errors, buggy software and hardware problems.
On one machine, I recently had freezes every few days. I kept testing it for a month or so till I discovered it was bad acceleration support in Xorg. Needless to say the machine had been freezing dozens of times during that period.


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## Seeker (Jan 20, 2010)

Beastie said:
			
		

> NTFS has the USN (Update Sequence Number) journal, which is the Windows version of what killasmurf86 posted right above your post.
> ...


And USN is enabled by default?
So that is why I never have any file looses on WinXP?

And to achieve "same" on FreeBSD I just need to utilize gjournal?


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## Carpetsmoker (Jan 21, 2010)

To be honest, I haven't read the entire thread, but please *test your hard drive properly.*
I did see you used dd, but using dd does *not* consist of a good hard drive test.

Use MHDD to test your drive, also be sure to look at the SMART data (Using MHDD or smartmontools in ports). Look for reallocated sectors and/or CRC/seek/read errors.

Here is a thread with useful information about hard drive testing, *Read this thread entirely* since much of the more useful info is towards the end.
http://www.daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=4042&highlight=mhdd

Hard drives are bloody unreliable machines


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## oliverh (Jan 21, 2010)

>Sadly, sysinstall is such a spaghetti mess of code that nobody really wants to touch it with a 10 feet pole and unfortunately it seems that installers in general are something that people with the know-how care the least about working on.

That's not true, Randy Harper - aka Freebsdgirl - tries to tame the beast.


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## DutchDaemon (Jan 21, 2010)

[ moved the ranting off to http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=10558] ]


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## Seeker (Jan 22, 2010)

Hm, ok...
For now shift from STABLE to RELEASE fixed an issue for me.

I'll do recommended HDD tests, later.


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## trev (Jan 23, 2010)

It might be interesting to know if anyone else is running FreeBSD successfully on the same laptop.

(I had an ASUS motherboard whose SATA controller caused file system inconsistencies almost on demand with normal usage. I replaced it with a Gigabyte with the same chipset and same SATA controller and no problems at all. The ASUS in now in my wife's Windows machine and has had no disk issues since being installed a year or so ago. Go figure.)


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## randi@ (Feb 1, 2010)

Jago said:
			
		

> That being said, I hope that FreeBSD will be moving towards using GPT and ZFS by default as soon as possible (leaving the older options available as an alternative). Sadly, sysinstall is such a spaghetti mess of code that nobody really wants to touch it with a 10 feet pole and unfortunately it seems that installers in general are something that people with the know-how care the least about working on.



I am working on this, but really, don't expect it anytime soon. I *hope* to have it in 9. The default will still be using the old style editor, but the expert mode will most likely have the option of using a new editor that allows for GPT using libgeom.

There have been updates to sysinstall recently, such as adding support to install from USB mass storage devices. Also, sysinstall code isn't *that* ugly or even difficult to understand. It's just outdated, as it doesn't account for improvements and advancements that have been made such as geom or devfs. Please examine the pr database or even commit log and/or related code before spreading such comments. Thanks!


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## rnejdl (Feb 1, 2010)

I ran into something similar yesterday where the system seemed to hang right around that point and my harddrive light was solid on.   I was able to hit CTRL+C at that point and it stopped the fsck it was running and kicked me to single user mode.

I do agree though that you really should not be losing files.   I have been debugging NVIDIA 64bit for the last month with lots of crashes and the only thing I've lost are temp files that were open at the time.

I didn't see where you had posted what your harddrive layout is.   Are you using one huge / partition like linux does or with a smaller / partition and other partitions such as /usr and /var? 

Rusty Nejdl
http://networking.ringofsaturn.com


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## Seeker (Feb 2, 2010)

HDD Layout:

```
******* Working on device /dev/ad4 *******
parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
cylinders=310101 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl)

Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1
parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
cylinders=310101 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl)

Media sector size is 512
Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1
Information from DOS bootblock is:
The data for partition 1 is:
sysid 7 (0x07),(NTFS, OS/2 HPFS, QNX-2 (16 bit) or Advanced UNIX)
    start 63, size 41945652 (20481 Meg), flag 0
	beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1;
	end: cyl 1023/ head 254/ sector 63
The data for partition 2 is:
sysid 15 (0x0f),(Extended DOS (LBA))
    start 41945715, size 192490830 (93989 Meg), flag 0
	beg: cyl 1023/ head 254/ sector 63;
	end: cyl 1023/ head 254/ sector 63
The data for partition 3 is:
sysid 165 (0xa5),(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
    start 234436545, size 78140160 (38154 Meg), flag 80 (active)
	beg: cyl 1023/ head 254/ sector 63;
	end: cyl 1023/ head 254/ sector 63
The data for partition 4 is:
<UNUSED>

******* Working on device /dev/ad4s3 *******
parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
cylinders=77520 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl)

Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1
parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
cylinders=77520 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl)

Media sector size is 512
Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1
Information from DOS bootblock is:
The data for partition 1 is:
<UNUSED>
The data for partition 2 is:
<UNUSED>
The data for partition 3 is:
<UNUSED>
The data for partition 4 is:
sysid 165 (0xa5),(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
    start 0, size 50000 (24 Meg), flag 80 (active)
	beg: cyl 0/ head 0/ sector 1;
	end: cyl 1023/ head 254/ sector 63


# /dev/ad4s3:
8 partitions:
#        size   offset    fstype   [fsize bsize bps/cpg]
  a:  1048576        0    4.2BSD     2048 16384     8 
  b:  8388608  1048576      swap                    
  c: 78140160        0    unused        0     0         # "raw" part, don't edit
  d:  9398272  9437184    4.2BSD     2048 16384 28552 
  e:  1048576 18835456    4.2BSD     2048 16384     8 
  f: 58256128 19884032    4.2BSD     2048 16384 28552
```


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## rnejdl (Feb 8, 2010)

That wasn't quite what I was looking for.  Can you provide the output from FreeBSD of a df -h ?  Also, it was touched upon here but I see you are dual booting and not sure if you are seeing any conflicts there.   A few people I believe mentioned where the boot block can become slightly corrupted and cause the effect you are seeing.

Sincerely,
Rusty Nejdl


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## Seeker (Feb 8, 2010)

```
# df -h
Filesystem     Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/ad4s3a    496M    370M     86M    81%    /
devfs          1.0K    1.0K      0B   100%    /dev
/dev/ad4s3e    496M    3.1M    453M     1%    /tmp
/dev/ad4s3f     27G    4.5G     20G    18%    /usr
/dev/ad4s3d    4.3G    2.9G    1.1G    72%    /var
/dev/fuse0      20G     15G    4.8G    76%    /mnt/win_c
/dev/fuse1      92G     87G    5.1G    94%    /mnt/win_d
```


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## chrcol (Feb 10, 2010)

does sysinstall even allow to use zfs in its current state?

the one part of freebsd that I doesnt seem to ever change for years and years is sysinstall and it still has some nasty glitches.  I really would suggest rewriting the default one from scratch and not only updating the expert mode because the sysinstall is what scares many people of to linux.


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## randi@ (Feb 10, 2010)

chrcol said:
			
		

> does sysinstall even allow to use zfs in its current state?
> 
> the one part of freebsd that I doesnt seem to ever change for years and years is sysinstall and it still has some nasty glitches.  I really would suggest rewriting the default one from scratch and not only updating the expert mode because the sysinstall is what scares many people of to linux.



Would you like to provide some patches? 

If people are scared away from FreeBSD by sysinstall - an installer which many people actually *like* because it has looked the same for years - then quite honestly, we don't need them. Show them OpenBSD's installer. Watch them cry.

The reason for only updating the expert mode for now is simple. Switching from libdisk to libgeom is no small change. There will be many bugs, and the last thing we need is to leave people without the option to use the old method should the new method be busted. Although most things are easily tested by all the people running -CURRENT, sysinstall is not one of them. Do you know how many people use sysinstall to install -CURRENT? Probably like 4. I'm not relying on 4 people to catch all the bugs in a completely new piece of code.

But you could solve all of this by providing patches that are spectacular and bug free, something that could redeem FreeBSD to those users that go "eek, I can't use ZFS with sysinstall, time to go to Linux!" (then later realize that Linux doesn't even have ZFS). I look forward to receiving them.


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## mix_room (Feb 10, 2010)

randi@ said:
			
		

> If people are scared away from FreeBSD by sysinstall - an installer which many people actually *like* because it has looked the same for years - then quite honestly, we don't need them. Show them OpenBSD's installer. Watch them cry.


Personally I really like sysinstall. For me it has always worked. The only think I like better is OpenBSDs installer, that is really a piece of functional software. It takes me less time to install OpenBSD to a functioning base than it takes me to get the windows installer to greet me. So I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who is working on sysinstall. 

And on an additional note, so what if users are scared away to linux. Is that REALLY a problem?


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## randi@ (Feb 10, 2010)

I really like OpenBSD's installer as well, but the point remains - if someone is all "FreeBSD's installer is scary", do you really think they are going to find anything other than an X based install that much better? It's friggin' dialog boxes. It's not rocket surgery.


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## chrcol (Feb 11, 2010)

randi I personally am fine with sysinstall for installing freebsd, however it does seem glitchy on a already running system.

I know people who rent out servers and they dont support freebsd for the simple reason they cant use sysinstall, they used to point and click install they get in centos.  Yes it does seem silly but I feel at this point sysinstall the first thing new users are faced with is enough to scare people off.

I am only making a suggestion in what I feel will increase freebsd uptake in the server environment I never said I think its easy to do.


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## randi@ (Feb 11, 2010)

The server environment rarely involves point and click - at least, not for serious operations. The focus in a production environment is to be able to roll out new installs quickly and easily - which sysinstall does have support for. It's possible to script or do an install over serial. Good luck having point and click over serial. 

If you want point and click, go to PC-BSD. It's not happening here.


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## chrcol (Feb 15, 2010)

you misunderstood me, its not what I want, its what datacentre staff want.

It is sad the tone of your reply, I guess freebsd development is not after a higher takeup.  If that is the case then fair enough.

The 3 main feedbacks I get given for reasons for a dc to not support freebsd are.

1 - lack of point and click on installer, apperently redhat based os's have this hence them been so popular.
2 - lack of working on network unattended installs, if freebsd does support this then I can pass this info on.
3 - various hardware hanging on bootloader, using external drives for media is very common, although I think this improved with freebsd 7 and I guess freebsd8.


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## cynical (Feb 27, 2010)

Arch Linux user here just wanting to chime in (I take an interest in the BSDs every now and then). After reading some of the comments here I googled sysinstall to see what the UI was like and I was completely unprepared... it is pretty much exactly what we use and we love it. A fully loaded desktop environment like Windows/Ubuntu/PCBSD use for installation is entirely unnecessary. Not to mention the with the amount of choice in our world, what DE do you choose? (cue flamewars) I would definitely agree with randi that those distributions/OS's that choose to focus on glitz and ease of use for beginners should continue to do so, (often building upon very stable but less glamorous relatives, much like debian/ubuntu or freebsd/pcbsd) while those that are more focused on the underlying system should continue improving that.


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## randi@ (Feb 28, 2010)

chrcol said:
			
		

> you misunderstood me, its not what I want, its what datacentre staff want.



Actually, I've worked in a datacentre before. I started out as a system administrator, not a developer. I've been an admin for 10 years. It's my background in system administration that made me interested in working on sysinstall.



			
				chrcol said:
			
		

> It is sad the tone of your reply, I guess freebsd development is not after a higher takeup.  If that is the case then fair enough.



I don't know what that means. Takeup? The tone of my reply is that I'm tired of people posting when they didn't bother researching what they are talking about.



			
				chrcol said:
			
		

> 1 - lack of point and click on installer, apperently redhat based os's have this hence them been so popular.



Actually, what makes redhat so popular is mostly the corporate support contracts. Management likes knowing they can call someone if things break. FreeBSD admins are hard to find, and because of this, usually more expensive as well. Anyone that does "point and click on installer" in a datacentre is a moron. Datacentre installs should be PXE boot/scripted.



			
				chrcol said:
			
		

> 2 - lack of working on network unattended installs, if freebsd does support this then I can pass this info on.



Do you ever both reading documentation before posting? Unattended/scripted installs are documented in both the handbook and the sysinstall man page. There are many how-tos that are easily found with google.



			
				chrcol said:
			
		

> 3 - various hardware hanging on bootloader, using external drives for media is very common, although I think this improved with freebsd 7 and I guess freebsd8.



I've never had this problem. It's entirely possible to use external drives for media. Do you mean boot media like booting off USB drives? Are you just talking out of your butt? Could you be a bit more descriptive? Seriously.


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## chrcol (Mar 8, 2010)

randi please be polite, there is no need to be so rude.  I get the impression you dont like negative feedback, when really you should be welcoming it as we all want freebsd to be better.

For external drives yes I do mean usb.  But like I said I think this has been resolved in freebsd7 as the complaints have stopped coming in since that got released.


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