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Serious Bug In 2.4.15/2.5.0

Posted by timothy on from the aim-the-bugspray dept.

John Ineson writes: "There is a bug in the latest kernel releases, that causes fs corruption on umount. A lot of people have already been hit by this, so for now I suggest you hold fire on booting those new kernels. More dead-duck than greased-turkey. Two possible fixes are being discussed on linux-kernel." Colin Bayer adds links to a story at the Register and Al Viro's fix. Update: 11/25 00:39 GMT by T : Tarkie writes "Linux 2.4.16-pre1 is out, as detailed at NewsForge. If you've been having the filesystem corruptions, might be worth a try so that 2.4.16 can be out ASAP!"

9 of 498 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Filesystems by MShook · · Score: 5, Informative

    You're correct, it is regardless of filesystem. If you happen to be running 2.4.15 or 2.5.0, just remember to force a fsck for the next reboot (shutdown -F) that's the only way to clear the fs because it will be marked clean even if it's not). Right now, the developpers don't know how reseirfs would deal with this bug...

  2. A fix... by phyngerz · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can find Andrea Arcangeli's fix at:
    ftp://ftp.us.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/an drea/kernels/v2.4/2.4.15aa1/00_iput-unmount-corrup tion-fix-1

  3. Re:Does anyone know... by Colin+Bayer · · Score: 5, Informative

    This bug was introduced when the kernel coders were trying to fix a bug that existed earlier (but, AFAIK, didn't cause fs corruption). It was introduced in pre9, but the final kernel was released within a few hours, so I guess nobody caught it in time.

    --
    Want Linux games? HERE.
  4. A Workaround by kanelephant · · Score: 4, Informative
    Al Viro gave this comment and workaround on lkml.
    Breakage happens when you umount filesystem (_any_ local filesystem, be it ext2, reiserfs, whatever) that still has dirty inodes.

    As a workaround - sync before umount (and don't boot unpatched 2.4.15/2.4.15-pre9 again, obviously).

    IOW, if you are running 2.4.15 - build a patched kernel, install it and do the following:
    * switch to single-user
    * sync
    * umount everything non-busy
    * remount the rest read-only
    * turn the thing off
    * boot with patched kernel or with anything before 2.4.15-pre9

    The filesystem corruption can be fixed by a forced fsck. (The fsck must be forced since the filesystem is marked clean.)
  5. the patch from the kernel list by MentlFlos · · Score: 4, Informative

    I hope /. dosent mangle this up too bad, but if it does:
    http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=100 658174003122&w=2

    List: linux-kernel
    Subject: Re: 2.4.15-pre9 breakage (inode.c)
    From: Linus Torvalds
    Date: 2001-11-24 5:55:42
    [Download message RAW]

    On Sat, 24 Nov 2001, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
    >
    > --- 2.4.15pre9aa1/fs/inode.c.~1~ Thu Nov 22 20:48:23 2001
    > +++ 2.4.15pre9aa1/fs/inode.c Sat Nov 24 06:30:20 2001
    > @@ -1071,7 +1071,7 @@
    > if (inode->i_state != I_CLEAR)
    > BUG();
    > } else {
    > - if (!list_empty(&inode->i_hash) && sb && sb->s_root) {
    > + if (!list_empty(&inode->i_hash)) {
    > if (!(inode->i_state & (I_DIRTY|I_LOCK))) {
    > list_del(&inode->i_list);
    > list_add(&inode->i_list, &inode_unused);

    I have to say that I like this patch better myself - the added tests are
    not sensible, and just removing them seems to be the right thing.

    Linus

  6. The discussion isn't over by Carnage4Life · · Score: 4, Informative

    The last post in that thread is this one by Andrea Arcangeli sometime this morning and from the looks of things (if you read the entire thread) there is conflict between Alexander Viro and Andrea on which is the better solution.

    Linus saying he prefers a patch on an initial viewing isn't the end of the situation for now. I'd suggesting waiting a week and revisiting the thread to find out what the final word was.

  7. Patch download here by DeeKayWon · · Score: 4, Informative

    The mailing list converted tabs into spaces, causing patch to choke. Get the patch here.

  8. Re:If you are already running it... by PeterM+from+Berkeley · · Score: 4, Informative

    I wouldn't do what this guy says.
    You're pretty much guaranteed to corrupt your
    filesystem this way. Probably nothing fsck
    couldn't fix, but still.

    Other posters have suggested that you use
    "shutdown -F" after running "sync",
    and rebooting into a NON-2.4.15 kernel.

    "sync" will write all the unsaved data to
    the disk, and "shutdown -F" will cause
    an fsck to start after rebooting.

    PM

  9. Re:Please spare us by Shane · · Score: 4, Informative

    First: This linux bug does not the loss of the ENTIRE FILE SYSTEM. It leaves .lock files with invalid INODES which can be repaired by manully running fsck. As to you're challenge, these are just a few corruption problems with windows 2000 that I found doing a simple search on www.microsoft.com.

    http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /Q 268/8/97.ASP

    http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /Q 258/0/75.ASP

    http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /Q 273/2/45.ASP

    http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /Q 298/9/36.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=file%20system %20corruption&rnk=16&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=WI N2000

    http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /Q 261/1/22.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=file%20system %20corruption&rnk=19&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=WI N2000

    http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /Q 255/5/69.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=file%20system %20corruption&rnk=23&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=WI N2000

    --
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