HP JFS 3.3 and HP OnLineJFS 3.3 VERITAS File System 3.3 System Administrator's Guide

Appendix A 129
Kernel Messages
File System Response to Problems
File System Response to Problems
When the file system encounters problems, it responds in one of three
ways:
• marks an inode bad
• disables transactions
• disables the file system
Marking an Inode Bad
Inodes can be marked bad if an inode update or a directory-block update
fails. In these types of failures, the file system doesn’t know what
information is on the disk, and considers all the information that it finds
to be invalid. After an inode is marked bad, the kernel still permits
access to the file name, but any attempt to access the data in the file or
change the inode fails.
Disabling Transactions
If the file system detects an error while writing the intent log, it disables
transactions. After transactions are disabled, the files in the file system
can still be read or written, but no block or inode frees or allocations,
structural changes, directory entry changes, or other changes to
metadata are allowed.
Disabling the File System
If an error occurs that compromises the integrity of the file system, VxFS
disables itself. If the intent log fails or an inode-list error occurs, the
super-block is ordinarily updated (setting the VX_FULLFSCK flag) so that
the next fsck does a full structural check. If this super-block update
fails, any further changes to the file system can cause inconsistencies
that are undetectable by the intent log replay. To avoid this situation, the
file system disables itself.
Recovering a Disabled File System
When the file system is disabled, no data can be written to the disk.