linux-ext4 - Re: [PATCH] tune2fs: remove dire warning about check intervals

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:   Wed, 19 Jul 2017 09:25:40 +0200
From:   Lukas Czerner <lczerner@...hat.com>
To:     Eric Sandeen <sandeen@...hat.com>
Cc:     "linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org" <linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] tune2fs: remove dire warning about check intervals

On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 04:10:49PM -0500, Eric Sandeen wrote:
> Time & mount-count based checks have been off by default for quite some
> time now, but the dire warning about disabling them remains in the
> tune2fs manpage, which is confusing.  We did "strongly consider
> the consequences" and disabled it by default, no need to scare the
> user about it now.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Eric Sandeen <sandeen@...hat.com>
> ---
> 
> diff --git a/misc/tune2fs.8.in b/misc/tune2fs.8.in
> index 5c885f9..a8cacc7 100644
> --- a/misc/tune2fs.8.in
> +++ b/misc/tune2fs.8.in
> @@ -134,17 +134,6 @@ Staggering the mount-counts at which filesystems are forcibly
>  checked will avoid all filesystems being checked at one time
>  when using journaled filesystems.
>  .sp
> -You should strongly consider the consequences of disabling
> -mount-count-dependent checking entirely.  Bad disk drives, cables,
> -memory, and kernel bugs could all corrupt a filesystem without
> -marking the filesystem dirty or in error.  If you are using
> -journaling on your filesystem, your filesystem will
> -.B never
> -be marked dirty, so it will not normally be checked.  A
> -filesystem error detected by the kernel will still force
> -an fsck on the next reboot, but it may already be too late
> -to prevent data loss at that point.
> -.sp
>  See also the
>  .B \-i
>  option for time-dependent checking.
> 

There is one more paragraph about this in the section about -i option.
Also I'd not remove it entirely, but adding a note of possible benefits
of this setting as well as disadvantages.

-Lukas