Arch Linux

brando56894

Member

From: NYC

Registered: 2008-08-03

Posts: 681

[Solved] Ext4 FS Still Marked As Dirty After Multiple fsck Runs

Over the past month or so ive been messing around with compiling custom kernels and comparing the boot times and performance specs, in doing so I have different rc.confs for the kernels since my custom one usually boots without an initrd and most of the modules that are specified in the default rc.conf throw errors since it cant find the specified modules. Like ive done in the past before I reboot into the new kernel I change the rc.conf from the the default one (usually the case since i compile the custom kernels while using the default kernel) to a tweaked one with either no modules or very few. Ive never had a problem with it in the past until now.

I noticed that during my shutdown that the colors were missing from the terminal messages, but I didnt really think anything of it until I tried to boot into the new kernel. When it tired to mount the root partition it said it couldnt because it was dirty and asked me to enter my root password for maintenance but I couldnt since apparently the usb modules arent loaded yet (ive had this problem in the past and cant figure it out). I rebooted into a clean installation of arch that I had installed before and ran sudo fsck.ext4 -vpf and it ran through and it said that it fixed the errors, and I proved this by mountint the partition without any problems. I rebooted and tried to boot using the custom kernel and the same thing happened. Thinking that maybe it was a problem with the kernel itself I booted using the default kernel and the same thing happened. I booted back in to the alternate installation ran fsck.ext4 again and switched the rc.conf back to the default one and tried to boot again, same thing happened.

I'm at a loss here because both installs mark the filesystem as dirty while booting but when I run the fsck it says it fixed the errors and everything works fine if I mount it manually, but upon reboot its still marked as dirty (also the colors arent there anymore in my main installation for some reason).

Once I get this fixed is there an easier (and safer) way to specify which rc.conf I want to use with which kernel? right now to make the switching easier Ive made a folder in my home directory that contains the various rc.confs that I have and I have them symlinked to /etc/rc.conf. I did notice before that to make a symlink correctly it has to be a absolute path (sudo ln -s /home/bran/"custom rc.confs"/rc.conf-original /etc/rc.conf) instead of a local path (cd /home/bran/"custom rc.confs"/; sudo ln -s rc.conf-original /etc/rc.conf). My home is contained within my root partition so thats not the issue and the permissions and symlink are set correctly. Heres proof (from inside a chroot of the main installation):

[root@chakra-desktop ~/scripts]# ls -l /etc|grep rc.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      55 2009-10-31 16:50 rc.conf -> /home/bran/scripts/custom rc.confs/rc.conf-original

One thing that I though of might be that the spaces in there might be screwing stuff up but I dont remember that being an issue before. I'll remove the spaces just to be sure.

Heres the output from the lastest fsck that was ran on the messed up (main installaion) root partition:

[bran@chakra-desktop /]$ sudo fsck.ext4 -vf /dev/sda2
e2fsck 1.41.9 (22-Aug-2009)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information

  437636 inodes used (33.32%)
     684 non-contiguous files (0.2%)
     262 non-contiguous directories (0.1%)
         # of inodes with ind/dind/tind blocks: 0/0/0
         Extent depth histogram: 429387/102
 3650830 blocks used (69.63%)
       0 bad blocks
       1 large file

  379723 regular files
   49509 directories
      10 character device files
       1 block device file
       2 fifos
    1129 links
    8380 symbolic links (8122 fast symbolic links)
       2 sockets
--------
  438756 files

Edit: I just tried removing the spaces from the symlink, booting the default kernel and using the default rc.conf and it still doesn't work. My usb keyboard doesnt work either (which I didnt notice before since when it asked me for the password I just rebooted)

I'm also getting this message when the boot process halts and wants me to enter maintenance mode:

Checking Filesystems
/dev/sda2: Superblock  last mount time (Sun Nov 1 15:49:59 2009, now = Sun Nov 1 10:51:18 2009) is in the future

I dont know why there would be a 5 hour difference between the last mount time and the current time, I didnt change any time settings (bios, rtc, clocks in OS etc...)

Edit: after multiple fsck runs I guess it finally decided to mark itself as clean. I also noticed something that I dont know if it was there before or not: while booting up it would show an error "/etc/sysinit line 6: /etc/rc.conf not found" but whats odd is the symlink looked to be correct but apparently it wasnt. I removed the symlink and replaced it with the actual file and all is well.

Last edited by brando56894 (2009-11-03 05:55:13)