pb@pipe.cs.wisc.edu (PB Schechter) (04/23/91)
I have a couple of questions that I have seen discussed in the past but have not (of course) kept track of, and so am reduced to asking them again. First, I seem to remember that someone made a simple modification (somewhere) so that when shutting the system down normally, a key word is written to a key file, so that, upon subsequent rebooting, fsck need not be run (greatly speeding up the reboot process). Rather than create this myself, I am hoping that someone will mail (or post, if you think there is sufficient interest) what they did to me. Second, my disk is getting to the 60-70% full range, and things are starting to slow down. Are there any suggestions for defragmentation? I know that I can copy everything to tape, delete it from my disk, and copy it back. However, I'm looking for something easier, if it exists. (I seem to remember reports of a "defragmentation program" that someone has run, for example.) Thanks in advance for any suggestions. PB Schechter pb@cs.wisc.edu
dnichols@ceilidh.beartrack.com (DoN Nichols) (04/25/91)
In article <1991Apr23.140925.10180@spool.cs.wisc.edu> pb@pipe.cs.wisc.edu (PB Schechter) writes: [ ... ] >First, I seem to remember that someone made a simple modification >(somewhere) so that when shutting the system down normally, a key word >is written to a key file, so that, upon subsequent rebooting, fsck need >not be run (greatly speeding up the reboot process). Rather than The information you want is at osu-cis under the name 'fsokay'. I forget whether it has a .cpio.Z on the end, but I think that it has. (I'm away from my machine, so I can't check it out by poping up another window, and I'm stuck using 1200 baud, so poking around the archives on my system from within the editor is not fun. Osu-cis is also known as 'cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu' on Internet. [ ... ] >Second, my disk is getting to the 60-70% full range, and things are >starting to slow down. Are there any suggestions for defragmentation? >I know that I can copy everything to tape, delete it from my disk, and >copy it back. However, I'm looking for something easier, if it exists. >(I seem to remember reports of a "defragmentation program" that someone >has run, for example.) There is such a program, though I haven't run it yet. (It must be run while booted from a floppy, or disaster strikes.) If you do the back up to tape (Which is a GOOD IDEA anyway), be warned that the backup utilities under ua WILL NOT back up any file that IT THINKS came with the foundation set (so if you have replaced a program with an improved version, same name, same directory - IT WILL NOT BE BACKED UP!!) Also, any files which carry a datestamp older than the time the foundation set was installed on your system (THE MOST RECENT TIME), will also not be backed up. Files from a tar or cpio image from another system, or from a previous install of this one should have their dates modified by touch(1). I just do: find / -type file -print | xargs touch to make sure that everything that isn't excluded by the foundation set list gets backed up. (I think that it just totally skips anything in /bin and maybe others.) It also explicitly avoids the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files. You should make a separate cpio backup of the contents of /etc, restore it in another directory, and mv the necessary files back to /etc. Some of the files if reloaded from the backup can leave the system in a strange state, so don't blindly mv everything from the backup into /etc. (You might be able to get away with it if you do it while booted from a floppy, so it doesn't touch the actual working files the kernel is currently using.) Good Luck DoN. -- Donald Nichols (DoN.) | Voice (Days): (703) 664-1585 D&D Data | Voice (Eves): (703) 938-4564 Disclaimer: from here - None | Email: <dnichols@ceilidh.beartrack.com> --- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---
ahh@glyph.kingston.ny.us (Andy Heffernan) (04/25/91)
In article <1991Apr23.140925.10180@spool.cs.wisc.edu> pb@pipe.cs.wisc.edu (PB Schechter) writes: [...] >First, I seem to remember that someone made a simple modification >(somewhere) so that when shutting the system down normally, a key word >is written to a key file, so that, upon subsequent rebooting, fsck need >not be run (greatly speeding up the reboot process). Rather than >create this myself, I am hoping that someone will mail (or post, if you >think there is sufficient interest) what they did to me. This is Lenny Tropiano's fsokay package. This is on osu-cis, somewhere under ~/att7300, as fsokay.cpio.Z. It involves some magic-cookie stuff on normal shutdown and startup to avoid unnecessary fsck's, various /etc/rc cleanups courtesy of Gil, and a safer fsck process when it is truly needed (like when you hit the reset button). Highly recommended, but be comfortable with changing system scripts like /etc/rc and /etc/shutdown. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Andy Heffernan $BJ8;z(J uunet!glyph!ahh
john@chance.UUCP (John R. MacMillan) (04/26/91)
|First, I seem to remember that someone made a simple modification |(somewhere) so that when shutting the system down normally, a key word |is written to a key file, so that, upon subsequent rebooting, fsck need |not be run (greatly speeding up the reboot process). There are a couple of approaches you can take. Be warned that any of them have a very small window where the system could crash, and an fsck would not be done, even though it probably should. I took a fairly simple approach. I modified /etc/shutdown so that if given the -f (fastboot) option, after it thinks the system is basically down, it touches /etc/fastboot. On reboot, if this file is present, it is removed and the fsck is skipped. Some time ago, Lenny and Gil posted a more thorough set of stuff that takes a slightly different approach, and is much more useful if you have multiple partitions. |Second, my disk is getting to the 60-70% full range, and things are |starting to slow down. Are there any suggestions for defragmentation? The simplest thing to do is fsck -s the disk every now and again. This will rebuild the freelist, so new things will not be as fragmented, but will not help with existing fragmentation. There is a program available, the name of which escapes me, that claims to defragment a filesystem in place. I have never tried it so I can't comment on whether it works. It's the kind of thing, though, that I wouldn't want to do without making a backup, which means you may not save much effort. What I do involves a program called fsanalyze which reports (among other things) the top 10 fragmented files. I have it on a customized floppy file system. I boot from floppy, fsck -s, run fsanalyze. Then I copy the fragmented executables (all of them), move them all back, and fsck -s again. A couple iterations of this does not take long and will take care of the most fragmented executables. I tend to do this when I put in big things that I suspect will be fragmented and are important to me. For example, gcc is big, and I'm low enough on disk space that by the time I get it fix-pointed, it's probably pretty fragmented, and I want it to load as quickly as possible.
ignatz@chinet.chi.il.us (Dave Ihnat) (04/29/91)
The program that you were thinking of is 'packdisk'. It *does* work--it defrags a disk or partition fine. Just, that it's so (justifiably) paranoid about trashing anything that it's s..l..o..w.. as molasses in January. But it does work; and especially on smaller drives, it could well be a big win. --- Dave Ihnat ignatz@homebru.chi.il.us (preferred return address) ignatz@chinet.chi.il.us