ungraceful shutdown/power failure handling problem. no boot

[fgina]

HI all,

I've been researching and building my pogoplug server for a while and want to sort out all issues before using it for real. first was networking dhcpdv6 client, then static ip, then usb wifi card all working great now. the new show stopper problem is ungraceful shutdowns. pulling power cord to the pogoplug causes it not to boot to arch os in usb stick at 100% reproducible rate. good news is, I can take the usb to another arch live cd fsck -f it. then it will work again.

this means if there's a power loss, it will not boot when power resumes. what's your experiences on this particular scenario? are there any workarounds? I was thinking to force fsck on the arch usb partition on every boot. is this possible? any pointers are appreciated!

[fgina]

I think I found the problem on my own. my root file system is ext2 not ext3. for some reason /usr/sbin/fw_setenv usb_rootfstype ext3 did not work

[moonman]

You need to convert your fs to ext3 if it isn't already. Google for the commands to convert.

You can also utilize uInitrd with fsck hook. I had already created one (Download in the U-Boot upgrade thread in my signature). But it may be the hassle you don't want to go through (U-Boot environment modifications... in case you make a mistake you device may become unbootable)

[fgina]

I spoke too soon.

while booted in alarm, df -T command shows this,
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
alarm ~ # df -T
Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root ext2 7687396 911428 6385464 13% /
')

however, trying to add journal to the root partition by $this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'tune2fs -j /dev/sda1'), it says already has journal. I put the usb to arch live cd then run df -T, it says type is ext3. what's going on?

[moonman]

You are on the right track then set rootfstype to ext3. What do you mean it doesn't work ? You run the command and what does it say?

[fgina]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'alarm ~ # tune2fs -j /dev/sda1
tune2fs 1.42.8 (20-Jun-2013)
The filesystem already has a journal.
')

[moonman]

I meant your second post when you set uboot variable. That's all that you should need

[fgina]

reinstalled everything. now I have ext3 on root. for whatever reason it didn't work the last time