[ale] Best FS to use when doing unclean shutdowns?

[Claudia Morlan]

Thank you for the ideas.

Currently, the encrypted partition (/dev/hda7) is not in fstab.  It is
loaded via a script that gets the encryption key and then unencrypts the
/dev/loop0 to a mount point.  We will put everything but this encrypted
partition in RO mode on bootup.  (thanks for that idea).  We'll also see
about running fsck on every boot.  We can't really lose the data once it
is
stored on the device.  About re-wiring the power supply, it's not
possible
(at least with our abilities) to make it become a soft-off switch.
(think
old AT computers type PS/controller).

Thanks.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Fowler" <cfowler at outpostsentinel.com>
To: ale at ale.org
To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts" <ale at ale.org>
Sent: Monday, July 11, 2005 5:05 PM
Subject: Re: [ale] Best FS to use when doing unclean shutdowns?


> On Mon, 2005-07-11 at 17:00 -0400, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> > Ah, HA! A basic dumb kiosk box.
> >
> > Make the basic boot section RO (/, /boot, /bin, /sbin). Make the
/var
> > a
> > skeleton that gets populated by a rc.local script.
> >
> > Put the data collection part on a separate partition. Change the
boot
> > scripts so it is NOT automatically loaded. Force a file-system auto-
> > repair check on every boot before mounting. Use EXT3 (easy to
install
> > from RedHat and derivatives) or ReiserFS (Mandrake and SUSE) (Debian
> > and
> > Slackware come with both). Use hdparm to setup no write buffering on
> > the
> > partition. Use a cron job that runs every minute to perform a "sync"
> > to
> > keep everything flushed.
> >
> > Use a second cron job to keep a mirror of the "live" partition as a
> > backup. In the event the fsck fails for any reason, use the backup
> > partition to overwrite it with.
> >
> > Rewire the power switch to only perform a soft-off, controlled power
> > down and reset.
> >
>
> I like this idea.  You can also reformat the FS storage if it gets
> beyond repair.  It all depends on how valuable the data is.  If the
> reason for HDD is because there is so much data but losing it is not a
> problem then you could reformat on failure to clean and mount.



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