Subject: Re: Improving the Unix API
To: Francois-Rene Rideau <fare@tunes.org>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
List: tech-kern
Date: 06/27/1999 22:18:22
>>      -f      The filesystem is forcibly unmounted.  Active special devices
>>              continue to work, but all other files return errors if further
>>              accesses are attempted.
> I think that returning errors is WRONG, unless [...]
> It means that you can't fix the problem with the filesystem and
> resume operations nicely afterwards;

I think I see part of the problem here.

You are thinking "unmount to fix problem, will remount later".

"umount -f" is more like "it's going away, dammit, and I'd rather crash
a few processes than have to take down the whole system".

It might be worthwhile having an option that causes attempted accesses
to hang until the filesystem comes back online, somewhat akin to
Auspex's filesystem "isolation".

					der Mouse

			       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
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