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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!news.technocom.co.uk!morse.ukonline.co.uk!bath.ac.uk!niss!warwick!bham!bhamcs!news.ox.ac.uk!sable.ox.ac.uk!mbeattie From: mbeattie@sable.ox.ac.uk (Malcolm Beattie) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.development.system Subject: Re: The better (more suitable)Unix?? FreeBSD or Linux Date: 12 Feb 1996 12:51:44 GMT Organization: Oxford University, England Lines: 50 Message-ID: <4fnd50$h1f@news.ox.ac.uk> References: <4er9hp$5ng@orb.direct.ca> <hpa.31167ef4.I.use.Linux@freya.yggdrasil.com> <4fdupc$e36@news1.wing.net> <JRICHARD.96Feb9101113@paradise.zko.dec.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: sable.ox.ac.uk Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:14134 comp.os.linux.development.system:17757 In article <JRICHARD.96Feb9101113@paradise.zko.dec.com>, John Richardson <jrichard@paradise.zko.dec.com> wrote: > > >> >> : 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 As a humorous but genuine example of that, I include a user's message (suitably anonymised) that we received after our 2100 (running Digital UNIX with the BSD FFS) crashed in December. > Date: Fri, 1 Dec 1995 15:20:20 GMT > From: J Random User <jruser> > Apparently-To: root > > I know funny things happen after crashes, but this is a new one on me. > My .pinerc file now contains lots of ascii pictures of cows. > Please can I have the old one back? > I haven't had time to look at many of the other files - do you think I should? > Thanks > > Random User We restored the user's real .pinerc from backup but another of our users must still be missing those cows. --Malcolm -- Malcolm Beattie <mbeattie@sable.ox.ac.uk> Oxford University Computing Services "Widget. It's got a widget. A lovely widget. A widget it has got." --Jack Dee