*BSD News Article 61646


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From: jrichard@paradise.zko.dec.com (John Richardson)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.development.system
Subject: Re: The better (more suitable)Unix?? FreeBSD or Linux
Followup-To: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.development.system
Date: 09 Feb 1996 15:11:13 GMT
Organization: WHATX
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Message-ID: <JRICHARD.96Feb9101113@paradise.zko.dec.com>
References: <4er9hp$5ng@orb.direct.ca> <4f27sc$13a@dyson.iquest.net>
	<4f4c78$dsb@aurora.romoidoy.com> <strenDMBHHo.311@netcom.com>
	<hpa.31167ef4.I.use.Linux@freya.yggdrasil.com>
	<4fdupc$e36@news1.wing.net>
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In-reply-to: pgf@american.com's message of 8 Feb 1996 22:51:23 GMT
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:13957 comp.os.linux.development.system:17562



> 
> : mostly because it really turns out that BSD-style synchronous metadata
> : updates are slow and buy you very little in terms of data safety, and
> : can, in fact, be a security hole.
> 
> whoa -- that's a big accusation for a filesystem that's been relied
> on and worked on by a lot of people for a lot of time.  what exactly
> are you referring to?  color me skeptical.  (but willing to learn.)


Since the metadata is written out before the actual data, if the
machine crashes before data is written, the metadata may point to
bogus data.  This means you may have access to data that someone else
thought was deleted.


-- 
John Richardson                jrichard@zko.dec.com
Digital Equipment Corporation  (603) 881-0168
Nashua, NH