From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Nl5No-0008Oh-6l for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:57:53 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 603ACE090A; Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:57:14 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-pv0-f181.google.com (mail-pv0-f181.google.com [74.125.83.181]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2E9D9E090A for ; Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:57:14 +0000 (UTC) Received: by pvc30 with SMTP id 30so106519pvc.40 for ; Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:57:13 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; bh=4cwoxvqcgPhs/9jQ/X1LK5e+R+zAy/kjOOy93IbZk/I=; b=AWufh2M3Y2OWScusKoqlIbgJDQD870hgzPolxtNffMsDfVvGpG7Fh350s/F1tUVQN5 PEFf70zRspt2AjDD5cutDUIgxJKyhZhC+CxlTY/suiBCrNeK0U3Vy/hYHDUZni7qVnZF k5/kFfk3tltwZiBde2hESYBQTupyna+/W2POI= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type; b=TmD51pXYUagBk7Fbq/9IVj8n1h13qrHEv02v3KGEyosiT011A+zWfj3q5+o161c5Pr igKuS+G2a0IhCVzZq4AQvWJZV770OaDMOwh2XEjd5GSvLfbJpiEolOUAc7pMMblbscy1 HDfTArCf735tDYbREWy8XDL1EP3nWg+31w8Wg= Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.142.152.11 with SMTP id z11mr447701wfd.71.1267210633655; Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:57:13 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <3ac129341002260938h71168de3gd1fb22537798712a@mail.gmail.com> References: <5bdc1c8b1002251933s6a250b99v607c97e09f41d4fe@mail.gmail.com> <3ac129341002260938h71168de3gd1fb22537798712a@mail.gmail.com> Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:57:13 -0800 Message-ID: <5bdc1c8b1002261057v3bfca72cic3081013f07c2249@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] recovery from /var corruption? From: Mark Knecht To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Archives-Salt: ccc09e7c-f61c-490a-87d6-d47b6ad9c2a2 X-Archives-Hash: ca32ea169e9199f31578c2c0aab086c0 On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 9:38 AM, daid kahl wrote: > On 26 February 2010 12:33, Mark Knecht wrote: >> So I got my wife's machine booted today using a install disk and >> played a bit with e2fsck. The machine stopped being happy last night >> due to some sort of corruption on the /var partition. e2fsck >> complained about 3 or 4 files and then repaired the partition. The >> machine booted cleanly as far as I can tell. >> >> So, something went bad and I managed to sneak around it for a while >> and now I'm sort of living with the machine wondering what to do. >> >> Do I just watch the logs looking for problems? I have no way of >> knowing right now whether this was a disk problem that's going to come >> back, a 1 time deal due to power, or something else entirely. >> >> As these cheap machines that don't use RAID what's the right way to >> go? emerge -e @world and then wait for the next event? Do nothing and >> wait? >> >> We've got decent personal data backups as well as basic /etc data. >> >> Thanks, >> Mark >> > > I reconsidered your problem, and I actually wonder if emerging world > is a valid notion in this case, as the world file is under /var and > this is reported as corrupt. > > In this sense, it may be entirely non-trivial to regenerate (without > backup) the correct world-file for a system. > > Am I out in the deep end, or is this, in fact, the critical point that > needs consideration here? > > ~daid Hi daid, In general you are correct. If I didn't have a copy of the world file then it would be a bit hit and miss. In this case I do have it saved elsewhere so it's actually quite easy. This failure is more (it seems) a few bad blocks on one partition and not a total drive failure. I'm leaning toward a new /var partition and just ignoring the partition that has problems. It will sit on the disk but it's only 10GB out of 160GB so it's not the end of the world by any means. Thanks! - Mark