linux-kernel - Re: [RFH] Partition table recovery

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-Id: <200707220710.31402.a1426z@gawab.com>
Date:	Sun, 22 Jul 2007 07:10:31 +0300
From:	Al Boldi <a1426z@...ab.com>
To:	linux-raid@...r.kernel.org
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFH] Partition table recovery

Theodore Tso wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 21, 2007 at 07:54:14PM +0200, Rene Herman wrote:
> > sfdisk -d already works most of the time. Not as a verbatim tool (I
> > actually semi-frequently use a "sfdisk -d /dev/hda | sfdisk" invocation
> > as a way to _rewrite_ the CHS fields to other values after changing
> > machines around on a disk) but something you'd backup on the FS level
> > should, in my opinion, need to be less fragile than would be possible
> > with just 512 bytes available.
>
> *IF* you remember to store the sfdisk -d somewhere useful.  In my "How
> To Recover From Hard Drive Catastrophies" classes, I tell them to
> print out a copy of "sfdisk -l /dev/hda ; sfdisk -d /dev/hda" and tape
> it to the side of the computer.  I also tell them do regular backups.
> What to make a guess how many them actually follow this good advice?
> Far fewer than I would like, I suspect...
>
> What I'm suggesting is the equivalent of sfdisk -d, except we'd be
> doing it automatically without requiring the user to take any kind of
> explicit action.  Is it perfect?  No, although the edge conditions are
> quite rare these days and generally involve users using legacy systems
> and/or doing Weird Shit such that They Really Should Know To Do Their
> Own Explicit Backups.  But for the novice users, it should work Just
> Fine.

Sounds great, but it may be advisable to hook this into the partition 
modification routines instead of mkfs/fsck.  Which would mean that the 
partition manager could ask the kernel to instruct its fs subsystem to 
update the backup partition table for each known fs-type that supports such 
a feature.


Thanks!

--
Al

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/