Re: New kernel crashing - how to test without corrupting disks?

[zinie@cs.unibo.it (Enrico Zini)]

On Sat, Jan 17, 2004 at 11:46:14PM -0600, Ramasubramanian Ramesh wrote:

> problem. I like to try a couple of combination. But like to minimize
> the risk of disk corruption. How do I prepare before issuing an
> kernel-killing command? Perhaps go into single user mode and unmount
> most of the partitions? Are are more things that can be done to
> prepate well for a freeze test?

If you've compiled the magic sysrq support among the kernel hacking
functions, Alt+SysRq+U mounts all filesystems read-only, and from there
you're safe.

Else, you can unmount filesystems or "mount -o remount,ro" them.  In
the latter case, you might need to go into single-user-mode to be able
to remount your root file system read-only.

However, if your system is not doing anything else, journaling file
systems and a "sync" issued before the experiment should be just fine
(mounting read-only is the sure bet, though).

Ciao,

Enrico