ext2 'remount' problem

[Richard B. Johnson]

I discovered this repeatable anomaly using Linux Version 2.4.18
and mount version "mount-2.10o".

If file-systems are mounted upon boot with 'defaults' as options

like /etc/fstab...

# device			directory	type	options	freq pass
# -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
/dev/sdb1			/		ext2	defaults  0   1
/dev/sdc1			/alt		ext2	defaults  0   2
/dev/sdb2			none		swap	defaults  0	2
/dev/sdc2			none		swap	defaults  0	2
/dev/sdc3			/home/users	ext2	defaults  0	2	
none				/proc		proc	defaults  0	2
/dev/sda1			/dos/drive_C	msdos	defaults  0     2
/dev/sda5			/dos/drive_D	msdos	defaults  0     2

Then I execute:

mount -o remount,rw,noatime /
mount -o remount,rw,noatime /alt
mount -o remount,rw,noatime /home/users

The result is (correctly)

cat /proc/mounts

/dev/root.old /initrd ext2 rw 0 0
/dev/root / ext2 rw,noatime 0 0
/dev/sdc1 /alt ext2 rw,noatime 0 0
/dev/sdc3 /home/users ext2 rw,noatime 0 0
none /proc proc rw 0 0
/dev/sda1 /dos/drive_C msdos rw 0 0
/dev/sda5 /dos/drive_D msdos rw 0 0

Now, if I shut down the system, properly dismounting all the drives,
then I reboot, the drives that were re-mounted end up being fscked
due to 'was not cleanly unmounted' inference. Nothing wrong is found.

Now, if I mount the drives "noatime" from the start, i.e., from
/etc/fstab upon startup, there are no such errors upon re-boot.

There is something going wrong during 'remount' that makes e2fsck
'think' that the drives were not cleanly dismounted.

Is this a known problem, fixed in later versions?

Cheers,
Dick Johnson

Penguin : Linux version 2.4.18 on an i686 machine (797.90 BogoMips).

                 Windows-2000/Professional isn't.