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2.4.20 ext3 Data Corrupting Bug Fixed

Posted by timothy on from the does-not-fix-mind-corruption dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The ext3 data corrupting bug found in the latest stable Linux kernel and reported by Slashdot here and here has been fixed. In this interesting KernelTrap story Andrew Morton describes the problem and offers a working patch. Evidently the bug has its roots in a much bigger design issue, something that won't likely be fixed in the current 2.4 kernel series. In any case, with Morton's patch applied your data will not be corrupted."

5 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. QA test cases. by Trusty+Penfold · · Score: 3, Insightful


    Where can I find the QA documentation, test cases and scripts for ext3? I would like to verify that this bug, and variations thereof, will be caught before release in the future. Thanks.

    They don't seem to be at the ext3 home (linked to in the story).

    Open Source is useless without Open Procedures, Open Documentation and Open Quality Control.

  2. Should be front page. by jericho4.0 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Why did /. have to cover this 3 times in the dev section. I know many non-dev types who jump on point releases as soon as they come out. They should know about this.

    I hate to say it, but maybe /. doesn't like stories that make linix look bad.

    --
    "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
    1. Re:Should be front page. by ignorant_newbie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      because anyone who runs the brand new shiniest version of anything on their machine should expect that it's not perfect, and should go look at resources for developers.

      slashdot:
      news for whiners, stuff for people who need things explained to them in very small words

      --
      Sitting Walrus Blog
  3. vs 3.0 by Lord+Bitman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And here we're talking about calling the next major release "3.0" while things as important as /the file system/ need to be majorly reworked. Perhaps we shouldnt jump the gun on this. 3.0 should not have things laying around in it that need to be completely re-worked if they're going to work right. It doesnt count as a culmination of significant changes since 2.0 if those changes wont actually be working in 3.0.1

    --
    -- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
  4. Re:Which as-shipped distros are affected by this? by Cecil · · Score: 4, Informative

    Which distributions ship using ext3 filesystems by default and setting them to mode journalled in their default ISO images? Um, none?

    Did you mean that you run your ext3 filesystems in full-journal mode, and would like to know if you have to update? Yes. Regardless of distro.

    In either case, please remember that journalled mode is NOT the default. The default is ordered. Unless you're explicitly setting your filesystem to full journalling, you aren't affected by this problem.

    HTH.

    --
    Random and weird software I've written.