hi,
A box which has been up for 140 days runs on a single 20GB '/' ext2
partition (as was provided by our colocater) . For long this box has
been untouched but was once used for 'heavy-duty' disk activities in the
past. when I logged in recently I realised that I'm unable to write to
the disk (even as root).
# touch test.file
touch: creating `test': Read-only file system
# pwd
/
# mount
/dev/hda3 on / type ext2 (rw,errors=remount-ro,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
# cat /etc/debian_version
3.0
It is worth noting the following:
* During those 'heavy-duty' days, the system load reached upto 7.00
and such.
* The filesystem has about 100 million small files on it. there is
one such directory with _lot_ of files:
# time ls | head
^C
real 12m8.965s
user 0m2.020s
sys 12m1.850s
#
Notice that the file list hasn't been done yet because there are
_so_many_ files on it and all the files are under one single parent
and I think thats the same reason why the kernel takes _all_ the
time trying to read through its nodes.
* This box is not physically available. It is a remote colocated box
(and hence any solution, that you think of would be appreciated if it
can be applied to a remote machine)
Can physical damages to disks cause such problems?
if in case a fsck has to be run, will it be possible to create a cramfs
with ssh enabled and allow a remote login to the system and fsck this
partition? Are there any ready-made tools/packages available for the
same?
Thanks in advance,
-Suraj
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