[TriLUG] e2fsck under cron gets retcode=8 operational error

[Joseph Mack NA3T]

On Wed, 19 Sep 2012, Thomas Gardner wrote:

> On 9/19/12, Joseph Mack NA3T <jmack at wm7d.net> wrote:
>> [...]
>> again you're just saying loudly to the world that you accept
>> that the utilities (in this case df) don't work.
>
> Cut me some slack, I said I'd try to get around to it.  Don't know if
> it'll be accepted or not, but I said I'd at least try.

just changing the error message from "operational error" to 
whatever the problem is (in my case "no tty") would be a big 
step forward.

> It's called hackin'. It's what Unix is all about.

I spent 2 days once tracking down an error in a bind-dhcpd 
config file. The error message was generic and, as far as I 
could tell, wrong. When I eventually found the error, I saw 
that the code would have known exactly what the problem was 
and could have output a specific message allowing me to fix 
the problem in minutes. Instead the code writer had output 
the same message for a whole lot of unhandled conditions and 
left me to pick up the pieces.

Alan Porter keeps pushing everyone to change to dnsmasq. I 
would, except that I've written scripts to handle the broken 
bits, and to output stats to rrdtool. I would have to 
rewrite the rrdtool scripts to move to dnsmasq. Next time I 
have to set up something completely new, I'll do it with 
dnsmasq. It can't be as bad as bind-dhcpd.

> You can never make all utilities give their output exactly 
> how everyone wants it.

There should be some principles

o output should be machine readable

o make best effort. If you don't have a tty, then do the 
things you can do without a tty. If an unknown option is 
given, ignore it, with a warning.

> You generally just try to make it machine massagable, at 
> least, and let people munge it on the back side.  It's not 
> terribly difficult to do, once you get the hang of it. 
> You just gotta get the hang of it.  It really doesn't take 
> a lot of resources to do, either, once you get good at it.

You are prepared to beat things into submission a lot more 
than I have been. I admire your tenacity, but I don't think 
that anyone should have to do what you do.

Joe
-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
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