Problem with disk going read only due to errors.
Hi,
I came in this morning to find a user unable to check his email -
reporting an unknown password. In tried to change his password and
couldn't, it turns out the drive had gone read only.
router:/var/log# mount
/dev/hda2 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
router:/var/log# man mount
man: can't create a temporary filename: Read-only file system
Being an amateur I rebooted the machine and was not at all surprised to
find this in the boot messages:
Feb 28 08:55:56 router kernel: EXT3-fs: INFO: recovery required on
readonly filesystem.
Feb 28 08:55:56 router kernel: EXT3-fs: write access will be enabled
during recovery.
Feb 28 08:55:56 router kernel: kjournald starting. Commit interval 5
seconds
Feb 28 08:55:56 router kernel: EXT3-fs warning (device ide0(3,2)):
ext3_clear_journal_err: Filesystem error recorded from previous mount:
IO failure
Feb 28 08:55:56 router kernel: EXT3-fs warning (device ide0(3,2)):
ext3_clear_journal_err: Marking fs in need of filesystem check.
Feb 28 08:55:56 router kernel: EXT3-fs: ide0(3,2): orphan cleanup on
readonly fs
Feb 28 08:55:56 router kernel: EXT3-fs: recovery complete.
Feb 28 08:55:56 router kernel: EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered
data mode.
So, it looks to me like we've had an IO failure on the drive so Linux
has remounted read only. Which is all good, except that we still had an
IO failure. This is an old machine (P133) with an SIS5513 chipset, but
a newer disk drive - a Maxtor 5136H2. I'm running ext3 but DMA is
disabled.
So, does this look like a hardware problem, and if so is it related to
the drive falling apart? The drive previously ran a lightly loaded
FreeBSD machine for about a year so it should have had a comparatively
easy life. If it is the drive, how can I find out what kind of state
it's in? Should I (and how can I) drop back to ext2? Performance is
really not all that important, as you can tell it's a lightly loaded
router and mail server.
Cheers,
Dave
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