linux-kernel - Linux 2.6.31.4

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>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <20091014050456.GA5954@roll>
Date:	Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:04:56 -0400
From:	tmhikaru@...il.com
To:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Linux 2.6.31.4

	I'm experiencing various problems which I'm seeing reproducably in
both 2.6.31.2 and 2.6.31.4 after upgrading from 2.6.30.8. Most notably, and
scary to me, is that I'm routinely seeing this I/O error message with
different sector numbers whenever I try to use my usb hard drive.

in syslog:

Oct 13 21:55:49 roll kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write
through
Oct 13 21:55:49 roll kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write
through
Oct 13 21:55:49 roll kernel:  sda1
Oct 13 21:55:49 roll kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write
through
Oct 13 21:56:20 roll kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector
50334647

in messages:
Oct 13 21:56:20 roll kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Unhandled error code
Oct 13 21:56:20 roll kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Result: hostbyte=0x07
driverbyte=0x00

	Now, this doesn't appear to affect anything so far as the filesystem
doesn't even get set readonly. (It's ext4) ... And I just found out that for
some reason the filesystem is set to continue on errors. I'm surprised, I
thought the default for mke2fs was to set remount readonly. *sigh* I'm
changing the settings for the filesystem now.

	In any case, these I/O error messages do *not* appear when I'm doing
similar things on 2.6.30.8. Given that this usb drive is my backup hard
drive, I've reason to be concerned - is this an *actual* error with the
physical disk, is something funky with the kernel, or... what?

	Before I attempt to debug this further, I'd like to know what the
error messages are being generated by, so I can find out just how concerned I
should be.

	I'm going to assume, for the moment, that something is wrong with
2.6.31.2/4's ability to use my usb hard drive and that the backup I have on
it is likely corrupt since I did not have the filesystem set to remount
readonly on errors. I'm going to wipe it and remake the backup with
2.6.30.8.
 
 
Please, let me know what's going on here. I need to know what the error
messages mean - is this a physical failure of the hard drive, or what?
 
Thank you,
Tim McGrath
--
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/