2010-05-26

I'll never use JFS for root FS anymore

I love JFS, but I'm not going to use it for root FS anymore.

One of the computers had JFS for its root FS. The computer crashed. The filesystem became dirty and refused to be mounted rw until it is fsck-ed. Unfortunately, the fsck program for JFS exists only as a userland tool (kernel cannot do it) and Debian's standard initramfs image does not have fsck.jfs. So the root fs was mounted ro and, as a result, several important services, including ssh, failed to start.

It was a good thing that the computer was downstair. I just went downstair and used a rescue CD to fsck.jfs the volume. I had 3 rescue CDs: trinity 3.3, knoppix 6.2 and system rescue disk 1.3.2. Only the last one has fsck.jfs.

From now on, I'll be using JFS only for data volumes.

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