Re: [RFH] Partition table recovery

[Al Boldi <a1426z@gawab.com>]

Theodore Tso wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 22, 2007 at 07:10:31AM +0300, Al Boldi wrote:
> > Sounds great, but it may be advisable to hook this into the partition
> > modification routines instead of mkfs/fsck.  Which would mean that the
> > partition manager could ask the kernel to instruct its fs subsystem to
> > update the backup partition table for each known fs-type that supports
> > such a feature.
>
> Well, let's think about this a bit.  What are the requirements?
>
> 1) The partition manager should be able explicitly request that a new
> backup of the partition tables be stashed in each filesystem that has
> room for such a backup.  That way, when the user affirmatively makes a
> partition table change, it can get backed up in all of the right
> places automatically.
>
> 2) The fsck program should *only* stash a backup of the partition
> table if there currently isn't one in the filesystem.  It may be that
> the partition table has been corrupted, and so merely doing an fsck
> should not transfer a current copy of the partition table to the
> filesystem-secpfic backup area.  It could be that the partition table
> was only partially recovered, and we don't want to overwrite the
> previously existing backups except on an explicit request from the
> system administrator.
>
> 3) The mkfs program should automatically create a backup of the
> current partition table layout.  That way we get a backup in the newly
> created filesystem as soon as it is created.
>
> 4) The exact location of the backup may vary from filesystem to
> filesystem.  For ext2/3/4, bytes 512-1023 are always unused, and don't
> interfere with the boot sector at bytes 0-511, so that's the obvious
> location.  Other filesystems may have that location in use, and some
> other location might be a better place to store it.  Ideally it will
> be a well-known location, that isn't dependent on finding an inode
> table, or some such, but that may not be possible for all filesystems.
>
> OK, so how about this as a solution that meets the above requirements?
>
> /sbin/partbackup <device> [<fspart>]
>
> 	Will scan <device> (i.e., /dev/hda, /dev/sdb, etc.) and create
> 	a 512 byte partition backup, using the format I've previously
> 	described.  If <fspart> is specified on the command line, it
> 	will use the blkid library to determine the filesystem type of
> 	<fspart>, and then attempt to execute
> 	/dev/partbackupfs.<fstype> to write the partition backup to
> 	<fspart>.  If <fspart> is '-', then it will write the 512 byte
> 	partition table to stdout.  If <fspart> is not specified on
> 	the command line, /sbin/partbackup will iterate over all
> 	partitions in <device>, use the blkid library to attempt to
> 	determine the correct filesystem type, and then execute
> 	/sbin/partbackupfs.<fstype> if such a backup program exists.
>
> /sbin/partbackupfs.<fstype> <fspart>
>
> 	... is a filesystem specific program for filesystem type
> 	<fstype>.  It will assure that <fspart> (i.e., /dev/hda1,
> 	/dev/sdb3) is of an appropriate filesystem type, and then read
> 	512 bytes from stdin and write it out to <fspart> to an
> 	appropriate place for that filesystem.
>
> Partition managers will be encouraged to check to see if
> /sbin/partbackup exists, and if so, after the partition table is
> written, will check to see if /sbin/partbackup exists, and if so, to
> call it with just one argument (i.e., /sbin/partbackup /dev/hdb).
> They SHOULD provide an option for the user to suppress the backup from
> happening, but the backup should be the default behavior.
>
> An /etc/mkfs.<fstype> program is encouraged to run /sbin/partbackup
> with two arguments (i.e., /sbin/partbackup /dev/hdb /dev/hdb3) when
> creating a filesystem.
>
> An /etc/fsck.<fstype> program is encouraged to check to see if a
> partition backup exists (assuming the filesystem supports it), and if
> not, call /sbin/partbackup with two arguments.
>
> A filesystem utility package for a particular filesystem type is
> encouraged to make the above changes to its mkfs and fsck programs, as
> well as provide an /sbin/partbackupfs.<fstype> program.

Great!

> I would do this all in userspace, though.  Is there any reason to get
> the kernel involved?  I don't think so.

Yes, doing things in userspace, when possible, is much better.  But, a change 
in the partition table has to be relayed to the kernel, and when that change 
happens to be on a mounted disk, then the partition manager complains of not 
being able to update the kernel's view.  So how can this be addressed?


Thanks!

--
Al