linux-kernel - Re: Possible EXT2 race

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Date:	Fri, 07 Dec 2007 21:44:53 -0600
From:	Robert Hancock <hancockr@...w.ca>
To:	"linux-os (Dick Johnson)" <linux-os@...logic.com>
Cc:	Dave Jones <davej@...hat.com>,
	Linux kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: Possible EXT2 race

linux-os (Dick Johnson) wrote:
> On Fri, 7 Dec 2007, Dave Jones wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, Dec 07, 2007 at 08:15:42AM -0500, linux-os (Dick Johnson) wrote:
>>
>>> Dec  7 04:05:55 chaos kernel: sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Peripheral device write fault
>> This sounds more like a hardware problem.
>>
>> 	Dave
>>
> 
> There was an attempt to write beyond the end of the device because
> everything in the file-system was getting trashed. I can read/write
> the 5 year-old SCSI physical drive with no errors from both within
> linux and through the Adaptec BIOS. This problem only occurs
> when I attempt to truncate a file that is being written by another
> task.

That SCSI error code doesn't sound like a reasonable one for the drive 
getting a bad block address. The more typical one in that case would be 
"Logical block address out of range", or maybe the catch-all "Invalid 
field in CDB". "Peripheral device write fault", especially as a deferred 
error (i.e. after the drive already returned a normal completion for the 
data, and then is reporting the failure to actually write to the media 
on the next command), really sounds like a drive problem.

And the kernel is supposed to trap those at the disk layer, like these 
are saying it is, _after_ that error occurs:

Dec  7 04:08:13 chaos kernel: attempt to access beyond end of device
Dec  7 04:08:13 chaos kernel: sdb1: rw=0, want=29687515944, limit=33736437

-- 
Robert Hancock      Saskatoon, SK, Canada
To email, remove "nospam" from hancockr@...pamshaw.ca
Home Page: http://www.roberthancock.com/

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