1 OCFS2 online file check 2 ----------------------- 3 4This document will describe OCFS2 online file check feature. 5 6Introduction 7============ 8OCFS2 is often used in high-availability systems. However, OCFS2 usually 9converts the filesystem to read-only when encounters an error. This may not be 10necessary, since turning the filesystem read-only would affect other running 11processes as well, decreasing availability. 12Then, a mount option (errors=continue) is introduced, which would return the 13-EIO errno to the calling process and terminate further processing so that the 14filesystem is not corrupted further. The filesystem is not converted to 15read-only, and the problematic file's inode number is reported in the kernel 16log. The user can try to check/fix this file via online filecheck feature. 17 18Scope 19===== 20This effort is to check/fix small issues which may hinder day-to-day operations 21of a cluster filesystem by turning the filesystem read-only. The scope of 22checking/fixing is at the file level, initially for regular files and eventually 23to all files (including system files) of the filesystem. 24 25In case of directory to file links is incorrect, the directory inode is 26reported as erroneous. 27 28This feature is not suited for extravagant checks which involve dependency of 29other components of the filesystem, such as but not limited to, checking if the 30bits for file blocks in the allocation has been set. In case of such an error, 31the offline fsck should/would be recommended. 32 33Finally, such an operation/feature should not be automated lest the filesystem 34may end up with more damage than before the repair attempt. So, this has to 35be performed using user interaction and consent. 36 37User interface 38============== 39When there are errors in the OCFS2 filesystem, they are usually accompanied 40by the inode number which caused the error. This inode number would be the 41input to check/fix the file. 42 43There is a sysfs directory for each OCFS2 file system mounting: 44 45 /sys/fs/ocfs2/<devname>/filecheck 46 47Here, <devname> indicates the name of OCFS2 volume device which has been already 48mounted. The file above would accept inode numbers. This could be used to 49communicate with kernel space, tell which file(inode number) will be checked or 50fixed. Currently, three operations are supported, which includes checking 51inode, fixing inode and setting the size of result record history. 52 531. If you want to know what error exactly happened to <inode> before fixing, do 54 55 # echo "<inode>" > /sys/fs/ocfs2/<devname>/filecheck/check 56 # cat /sys/fs/ocfs2/<devname>/filecheck/check 57 58The output is like this: 59 INO DONE ERROR 6039502 1 GENERATION 61 62<INO> lists the inode numbers. 63<DONE> indicates whether the operation has been finished. 64<ERROR> says what kind of errors was found. For the detailed error numbers, 65please refer to the file linux/fs/ocfs2/filecheck.h. 66 672. If you determine to fix this inode, do 68 69 # echo "<inode>" > /sys/fs/ocfs2/<devname>/filecheck/fix 70 # cat /sys/fs/ocfs2/<devname>/filecheck/fix 71 72The output is like this: 73 INO DONE ERROR 7439502 1 SUCCESS 75 76This time, the <ERROR> column indicates whether this fix is successful or not. 77 783. The record cache is used to store the history of check/fix results. It's 79default size is 10, and can be adjust between the range of 10 ~ 100. You can 80adjust the size like this: 81 82 # echo "<size>" > /sys/fs/ocfs2/<devname>/filecheck/set 83 84Fixing stuff 85============ 86On receiving the inode, the filesystem would read the inode and the 87file metadata. In case of errors, the filesystem would fix the errors 88and report the problems it fixed in the kernel log. As a precautionary measure, 89the inode must first be checked for errors before performing a final fix. 90 91The inode and the result history will be maintained temporarily in a 92small linked list buffer which would contain the last (N) inodes 93fixed/checked, the detailed errors which were fixed/checked are printed in the 94kernel log. 95
