[TriLUG] EXT3 Errors

[Jon Carnes]

On Tue, 2004-06-01 at 12:13, Joshua Gitlin wrote:
> Hey TriLUG,
> 
> Over the weekend I started noticing very weird problems with my /home 
> partition. I was trying to connect to my Mandrake linux box using VNC, 
> and I kept getting a message about an error in my .Xauthority file. 
> Well, the odd thing is, in my home directory, `ls -al .X*` produces a 
> list of files that did not include .Xauthority. Nor did `la -al *`. 
> However, `ls -l .Xauthority` showed me a single .Xauthority file. I 
> could edit it, using pico and vi, as well as cat > to it. However, I 
> couldn't remove or unlink it (both said "No such file or directory").
> 
> I assumed that something had gone terribly wrong somewhere and somehow 
> this file was only partially in existence. Not knowing what else to do, 
> I created a tar backup of my entire /home partition, and erased the 
> /home partition using `mkfs.ext3 -j /dev/hdb1`. Now, when I go to 
> un-tar the archive back into /home, I get the following messages:
> 
> Jun  1 08:12:28 jn kernel: EXT3 FS on hdb1, internal journal
> Jun  1 08:12:28 jn kernel: EXT3-fs warning: maximal mount count 
> reached, running e2fsck is recommended
> 
When you create a Partition you set a Maximal Mount Count. This value is
used as a nag to tell you to scan your partition after so many
mount/umount's. Once you run fsck on the partition it resets the counter
to zero.

You'll get the message again after you've mounted/unmounted your volume
a certain number of times (The Maximal Mount Count).

It's normal, and is meant as a nag to force you to take care of
FileSystem problems *before* they lead to data loss.  Note: most times
you'll find no problems, and if that is the case with you, then set that
sucker to some higher value so it doesn't nag you as often.

Good Luck - Jon Carnes

> The messages repeat over and over as long as tar -x is running... On 
> both my console and in my syslog. I've run e2fsck /dev/hdb1, and  it 
> said everything was fine. Any thoughts?
> 
> -Josh
> 

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