[Lustre-discuss] ll_ost_creat_* goes bersek (100% cpu used - OST disabled)

[Andreas Dilger]

On 2010-08-14, at 2:28, Adrian Ulrich <adrian at blinkenlights.ch> wrote:
>> - the on-disk structure of the object directory for this OST is corrupted.
>>  Run "e2fsck -fp /dev/{ostdev}" on the unmounted OST filesystem.
> 
> e2fsck fixed it: The OST is now running since 40 minutes without problems:
> 
> But shouldn't the journal of ext3/ldiskfs make running e2fsck unnecessary?

The journal will prevent inconsistencies in the filesystem in case of a crash. It cannot prevent corruption of the on-disk data, inconsistencies caused by cache enabled on the disks or in a RAID controller, software bugs, memory corruption, bad cables, etc. 

That is why it is still a good idea for users to run e2fsck periodically on a filesystem. If you are using LVM there is an lvcheck script I wrote that can check a filesystem snapshot on a running system, but otherwise you should do it whenever the opportunity arises. 

Cheers, Andreas