.* .* $Header: D:/ext2-os2/doc/RCS/USAGE.IM,v 1.2 1995/08/17 09:44:46 Willm Exp Willm $ .* .* Linux ext2 file system driver for OS/2 2.x and WARP - Allows OS/2 to .* access your Linux ext2fs partitions as normal drive letters. .* OS/2 implementation : Copyright (C) 1995 Matthieu WILLM .* .* This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify .* it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by .* the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or .* (at your option) any later version. .* .* This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, .* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of .* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the .* GNU General Public License for more details. .* .* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License .* along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software .* Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. .******************************************************************************* .*** V - Usage instructions *** .******************************************************************************* .nameit symbol=titre_500 text='Usage instructions' .nameit symbol=titre_510 text='Lazy writes considerations' .nameit symbol=titre_520 text='Automatic check disk' .nameit symbol=titre_530 text='Fatal ext2-os2 errors' .nameit symbol=titre_540 text='Case sensitivity considerations' .nameit symbol=titre_550 text='Debug version of ext2-os2' :h1 id=500.&titre_500. :p. This chapter describes some imortant usage instructions. :ol compact. :li.:link reftype=hd refid=510.&titre_510.:elink. :li.:link reftype=hd refid=520.&titre_520.:elink. :li.:link reftype=hd refid=530.&titre_530.:elink. :li.:link reftype=hd refid=540.&titre_540.:elink. :li.:link reftype=hd refid=550.&titre_550.:elink. :eol. :h2 id=510.&titre_510. :p. This release uses only lazy writes : it means that data are not committed to the disk immediately. :color fc=red bc=default. YOU *MUST ALWAYS* SHUTDOWN YOUR SYSTEM PROPERLY :color fc=default bc=default. so that data can be written to disk. :color fc=red bc=default. IF YOU DON'T FOLLOW THIS RULE, YOUR EXT2FS PARTITION WILL BE PROBABLY DAMAGED, AND YOUR DATA LOST. :color fc=default bc=default. :p. I included a :link reftype=fn refid=599.sync.exe:elink. utility that flushes the cache to disk if you need to be sure that data are committed without shutting down the system. This :link reftype=fn refid=599.sync.exe:elink. utility is still primitive, so please use it only when no other activity is taking place on your partition. :p. If you use ex2fs formatted removable media (floppy, ...) data should be commited to disk before the media is removed. You MUST run :link reftype=fn refid=599.sync.exe:elink. BEFORE removing the media from its drive. :p. There is an automatic flush during system shutdown. At that time the removable media (if you used one) MUST be present in the drive. :nt. You'll notice that the shutdown process is slightly longer : this is absolutely normal. :ent. :fn id=599. :p. sync.exe does exactly what its Unix counterpart (sync) does : it commits all buffered data to disks. :p. Invocation : :xmp. sync :exmp. :nt. sync.exe is still very primitive. Please ensure that all removable media are in their drives, and that there is no activity on the &EXT2FS. volumes when you invoke sync.exe. :ent. :efn. :h2 id=520.&titre_520. :p. When ext2-os2 mounts an &EXT2FS. partition and when read writes are enabled, it will set the mount count in the superblock to its maximum value in order to force a disk check when Linux mounts the drive. :h2 id=530.&titre_530. :p. ext2-os2 fatal errors can appear in several forms : :ol compact. :li.A system halt with a register dump : this is a fatal exception trapped by the &OS2. kernel, due for example to a NULL pointer assignment. In this case the kernel debugger or a system dump is needed to track down the problem. :li.A system halt with a cryptic message or a message like "Ext2-fs panic". It's a system halt initiated by ext2-os2 due to an unexpected error. :li.A beep can occur and you'll see a message like "Ext2-fs error ..." in the ext2-os2 output : An unrecoverable error occured and ext2-os2 blocked the calling thread, making the calling process unkillable. This is less rough than a system halt, but the system is in a dangerous state. In such case the system should have been halted but it's just to give a chance to run sync.exe and shut down the system properly. :li.The whole system can freeze tightly : it is probably because an infinite loop was entered. Here also the kernel debugger is the only solution. :li. One or more app seem to be frozen : it is probably a deadlock. :eol. :p. In either case, your &EXT2FS. partition is in great danger ; To minimize the risk of data loss, please do the following &colon. :ol compact. :li.Write down the output of ext2-os2.exe if any :li.Run sync.exe if possible. :li.If possible, IMMEDIATELY shut down thesystem properly , don't do anything else on the partition. :li.Reboot Linux and run e2fsck -fv :li.If you can reproduce the problem please send me a test case, as well as ext2-os2.exe's output. :eol. :h2 id=540.&titre_540. :p. ext2fs is a case sensitive file system ; ext2-os2 does case sensitive comparisions, but even if &OS2. supports case sensitive file systems, all the apps that uppercase or lowercase file names are broken. Some parts of &OS2. are also broken : for instance the OS/2 loader will uppercase executable names. I plan to add a switch to make ext2-os2 case retensive (aka like HPFS) ... :h2 id=550.&titre_550. :p. To help tracking ext2-os2 bugs, I included a debug version of ext2-os2.ifs. Using it ext2-os2.exe will become A LOT more verbose. To use them you just have to : :ol compact. :li.Copy ext2d.ifs where you installed ext2-os2 (normally in \os2\fs\ext2 on your boot drive) :li.Replace the line IFS=<path>ext2-os2.ifs <parms> with IFS=<path>ext2d.ifs <parms> in your CONFIG.SYS :li.Run ext2-os2.exe -trace > ext2-os2.out :li.Try to reproduce a problem :li.Type Ctrl+C in ext2-os2.exe's window, and save ext2-os2.out in a safe place. :li.Please e-mail me a short description of the problem, and the *SMALL* interesting part of ext2-os2.out (NOT the whole file please : this would cost me a tremendous amount of money to download it). If I need the whole file then we'll see how you can send it to me. :eol. :nt. ext2-os2.exe's output should be redirected to any file (here ext2-os2.out) anywhere, BUT NOT TO A FILE LOCATED ON AN EXT2FS PARTITION. Otherwise this would result in an infinite loop between ext2d.ifs and ext2-os2.exe ... :ent. :nt. Don't run ext2-os2.exe for a long time when using ext2d.ifs : its output can produce a HUGE file (several MB). :ent. :nt. You'll notice a big performance hit when running ext2d.ifs : this is a normal behaviour, since a lot of trace data are "pumped" from ext2d.ifs, and many more context switches are necessary. :ent. :nt. Please don't run any time critical app while using ext2-os2.exe with the -trace option set. :ent.