Re: 2.5.18 / ext3 / oracle trouble

[Andrew Morton]

Christoph Rohland wrote:
> 
> Hi Zlatko,
> 
> On Sun, 26 May 2002, Zlatko Calusic wrote:
> > Hi!
> >
> > After lots of testing, I can say that 2.5.18 works great in all
> > three modes of ext3 for all but one purpose. Oracle database still
> > gets corrupted during insert load. More precisely, online redo log
> > gets corrupted, database panics and restore is in order.
> >
> > This leads me to thinking that there's something wrong with sysv
> > shared memory in 2.5.x. Although the problem could also be in
> > fsync() or swap_out() & co. paths, it's yet to be discovered.
> >
> > It could also be that journaled mode helps the trouble, and it could
> > be that some swapping makes it more certain, but none of these two
> > facts are proved for sure. Take it as an observation.
> >
> > Christoph, I don't know if you're still taking care of shmem in
> > 2.5.x, so take my apologies if you didn't want to see this email.
> >
> > Regards,
> > --
> > Zlatko
> 
> Unfortunately I do not have the time to work on shmem right now. Hugh
> Dickins is the right guy to contact nowadays.
> 

Most likely suspect here is the heavy fsync() load is triggering
some timing problem in ext3 - it'll be pushing the commits though
at high rate.

I'll teach fsx-linux (great test app, btw) about fsync() and see
how it stands up.  And if Zlatko can retest on ext2 that would be a
big help.

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