[NBLUG/talk] Older Server

[Walter Hansen]

I'm going to take a good look at the files on Monday. Kinda feels like 
working on a non-running car.

S. Saunders wrote:
> On Thu, January 17, 2008 11:13, Walter Hansen wrote:
>> I have an older server running RH 7.3 ... It has an issue booting
>> and I think I know why.  It had a single directory with 15,000+
>> files in it under ext2 or ext3 (I think ext3).  I used knoppix and
>> copied the important stuff to a usb drive and then used
>> e2fsck to repair the file system after deleting the 15,000+ files. There
>> were a lot of problems mostly in the upper blocks. I'm running e2fsck -c
>> to check for bad blocks right now, but I don't think it's a drive issue.
>>
>> It's still not booting and I'll post where it grinds down after this, but
>> my question is if there is anything I should try to revive it or if I
>> should just start over and re-install everything on it? I should have had
>> a good complete backup, but this was really a low priority test server
>> that we had just gotten to do something useful (no excuse).  Also
>> does it sound like my guestimate is correct and the 15,000+ files
>> creates problems for ext3?
>>
>> RH 7.3 (2.4.18-3)
>> from screen:
>>
>> INIT: version 2.84 booting
>> INIT: can not execute "etc/rc.d/rc"
>> INIT: open(/dev/console): input/output error
>> INIT: Id "1" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
>> INIT: Id "2" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
>> INIT: Id "6" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
>> INIT: Id "3" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
>> INIT: Id "4" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
>> INIT: no more processes left in this runlevel
>>
>> If left going it produces more of the respawning too fast
>> messages every so often.
> 
> Hrm.  I'll take a stab at this one... while I do know that some FS's
> have problems with too many files in a single directory, I can neither
> confirm nor deny that ext2 or ext3 are among those.  Have you
> Google'd "too many files"+<ext2|ext3> ?
> 
> However, the errors above don't seem related to that issue
> (unless p'raps your 15Kilofile directory was /etc/rc.d or maybe /etc).
> As for the errors above...
> 
> Does /etc/rc.d/rc exist?  Is it on the root FS (it appears to be, from
> the above)?  Is it executable?
> 
> What does "ls -l" say about /etc/console?  Compare it to other /dev's.
> Is is possible you need to re-create it (I dunno the RH command(s) to
> do so, but presumably someone will be along shortly who either
> knows the commands, or knows that something else is appropriate).
> 
> As for the respawns... PID's [1,2,3,4,6] are REALLY low-level items;
> I wouldn't expect J.Random Directory to force (m)any of them to
> respawn, unless some boot-time scripts are forcing I/O to/from that
> questionable directory.
> 
> At present, I would be *dis*inclined to think the 15Kilofile directory
> was the only (or even the primary) problem, though I wouldn't
> eliminate it.  Also, it could be just a "contributory" issue on a system
> that has OTHER problems...
> 
> 
> My .02, FWIW...
> 
> - Steve
> 
> 
> 
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