[comp.unix.xenix] SCRATCH FILE for fsck

chip@vector.UUCP (Chip Rosenthal) (09/27/88)

In article <88@infopro.UUCP> david@infopro.UUCP (David Fiedler) writes:
>From article <7188@well.UUCP>, by dave@well.UUCP (Dave Hughes):
>> How can I get [fsck] to automatically get past the prompt for a SCRATCHFILE
>How about changing the appropriate entry in /etc/default/filesys to add
>something like "-t /tmp/scratch"?

Be careful.  This won't work when you fsck the filesystem which contains
/tmp/scratch.  Assuming that /tmp isn't a seperate filesytem and your
root filesystem isn't large, then /tmp/scratch will work.  Otherwise, a
better way would be to create a small device with divvy called /dev/scratch
and use that instead.  Unfortunately, I don't remember how large this
needs to be.  (Can anybody fill this in??)

In fact, when divvy is first run, if you have any large filesystems *and*
you have enough unallocated space on the disk, it will ask you if it
should make a /dev/scratch.  If you answer "yes", it will not only make
it, but it will put the proper "fsckflags" in /etc/default/filesys as well.
-- 
Chip Rosenthal     chip@vector.UUCP | I've been a wizard since my childhood.
Dallas Semiconductor   214-450-0486 | And I've earned some respect for my art.

haugj@pigs.UUCP (John F. Haugh II) (09/28/88)

In article <574@vector.UUCP> chip@vector.UUCP (Chip Rosenthal) writes:
>In article <88@infopro.UUCP> david@infopro.UUCP (David Fiedler) writes:
>>From article <7188@well.UUCP>, by dave@well.UUCP (Dave Hughes):
>>> How can I get [fsck] to automatically get past the prompt for a SCRATCHFILE
>>How about changing the appropriate entry in /etc/default/filesys to add
>>something like "-t /tmp/scratch"?
>
>Be careful.  This won't work when you fsck the filesystem which contains
>/tmp/scratch.  Assuming that /tmp isn't a seperate filesytem and your
>root filesystem isn't large, then /tmp/scratch will work.  Otherwise, a
>better way would be to create a small device with divvy called /dev/scratch
>and use that instead.

what about the RAM disks?  you can use one of the non-lingering RAM
disks for this function.

the manual describes how to create the device node for a ram disk of
the desired size and lifetime.  you don't want one of the "forever"
ramdisks since you presumably want the memory when fsck is done with it ...

>                       Unfortunately, I don't remember how large this

i believe a good rule of thumb is 1K (two xenix blocks) per MB.  this
changes if you have a large number of inodes in the file system, such as
a news partition might have.
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