Open System Services Management and Operations Guide (G06.29+, H06.07+)
Managing Filesets
Open System Services Management and Operations Guide—527191-005
5-25
FSCK Log File
Open System Services was designed to allow customers to configure systems where
FSCK should never need to run, even in most multiple-failure situations. Traditional
UNIX systems are different: those systems have relied on running fsck whenever
there is a system failure.
FSCK is provided as part of Open System Services primarily to be used in the event of
catastrophic failures such as the following:
•
The complete loss of a disk volume containing OSS files or an OSS catalog (loss
of both primary and mirror drives)
•
The failure of the built-in recovery mechanisms of an OSS name server
In most of these cases, FSCK is run automatically by the OSS Monitor. Cases where
you must run FSCK manually are signaled by Event Management Service (EMS) OSS
subsystem message 3. For more information about EMS operator messages, see the
Operator Messages Manual.
Filesets that are configured with the BUFFERED CREATE (fast-create) option require
more frequent use of FSCK. For such filesets, you must run FSCK when a double
failure results in the loss of either the OSS name server process (both primary and
backup) or a disk volume containing a fast-create fileset.
Note that even with the fast-create option enabled, FSCK is needed only in cases of
multiple failures and is run automatically by the OSS Monitor in most of these cases.
The DIAGNOSE FILESET command can take a long time to finish. You should
therefore execute the command during a time when having a fileset unmounted for a
long period does not disrupt normal user activity.
While a fileset is being diagnosed, that fileset is put into the DIAGNOSING state. When
the diagnosis operation is finished, the fileset reverts to the STOPPED state and you
can mount it with the SCF START FILESET command.
If the FSCK utility fails, the fileset is put into the UNKNOWN state instead of the
STOPPED state.
If the DIAGNOSE FILESET command is issued with the OPTION STOP option and the
fileset being diagnosed has a problem that has not been corrected, a subsequent
mount of the fileset might fail.
FSCK Log File
The FSCK utility writes its output to a Guardian log file. Figure 5-4 on page 5-27 shows
two examples of FSCK log files.
Note. Before you use the DIAGNOSE FILESET command, make sure that the fileset you are
about to check is stopped (unmounted). The OSS Monitor displays an error message if you
attempt to diagnose a fileset that is not stopped. See Appendix A, Messages, for information
about OSS Monitor messages.