linux-ext4 - Re: e2fsck -y says "yes" to "Abort?"

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Date:	Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:29:28 -0400
From:	Ric Wheeler <rwheeler@...hat.com>
To:	Theodore Tso <tytso@....edu>
CC:	Eric Sandeen <sandeen@...hat.com>,
	ext4 development <linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: e2fsck -y says "yes" to "Abort?"

Theodore Tso wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 09:10:50AM -0500, Eric Sandeen wrote:
>   
>> I've got this bug filed against Fedora:
>>
>> sh-3.2# e2fsck -y /dev/VolGroup00/VolVol02
>> e2fsck 1.41.3 (12-Oct-2008)
>> The filesystem size (according to the superblock) is 14090240 blocks
>> The physical size of the device is 8847360 blocks
>> Either the superblock or the partition table is likely to be corrupt!
>>
>> Abort? yes
>>
>> I'm reluctant to invert the logic of the Abort? question as suggested
>> ("Are you sure you want to continue?") because this is a significant
>> enough problem that we probably should really pause for consideration.
>>
>> But it seems like perhaps stopping at "Abort?", allowing the user to say
>> "n" to that and then let the "-y" flag take over from there would be
>> reasonable.
>>
>> If this sounds ok I'll whip up a patch, something like a way to flag the
>> really serious questions (?) as unaffected by -y.
>>     
>
> Seems reasonable to me; we'll have to update the documentation to
> explain that -y really doesn't mean yes to _all_ questions, but that
> seems like the best approach.
>
> 					- Ted
> --
>   

The only down side is when you try to automate this (say in an 
appliance) and you don't have a human reading the output. In this case, 
you might just want to invert the logic but in general, it does seem 
dangerous to invert the logic for a long standing option,

Ric

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