Question about Cyrus, ext3, and Linux kernel 2.4.18 bug

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Fri, 11 Apr 2003, Michael Sims wrote:
> Is anyone out there running Cyrus on Linux kernel 2.4.18, using ext3 with
> "data=journal" on the Cyrus spool volume?  If so, have you had any problems?

That will kill your kernel (unless redhat did a major ext3 bughunt on their
2.4.18). Don't do it. Switch to 2.4.21pre, or try using xfs.

> Can anyone shed some light on this?  If you know of the bug, can you tell me
> what exactly happens when it is triggered?  Is it a kernel panic?  Does the
> filesystem get corrupted?

The kernel syslogs errors, and will hang any accesses to the affected
filesystem (unkillable D state processes).  At that point, umount everything
you can, and hard-reset the machine, because nothing else other than SysRq+B
or a hard reset will work.  Filesystem corruption is assured.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh