I think I've narrowed it down . . please see steps below and if you can comment I would appreciate! 1) dd if=/dev/zero bs=1024 count=2048 of=ext3virgin 2) md5sum ext3virgin -------> my value is 'XXX' 3) losetup /dev/loop0 ext3virgin 4) mkfs -j /dev/loop0 5) cp -v ext3virgin ext3whore 6) md5sum ext3virgin -------> my value is again 'XXX' (has not changed) 7) md5sum ext3whore -------> my value is again 'XXX' (equal to ext3virgin) 8) debugfs ext3virgin -------> logdump (returns 'Journal starts at block 0, transaction 1') -------> stats (just to view statistics) -------> quit 9) debugfs ext3whore -------> logdump (returns 'Journal starts at block 0, transaction 1') -------> stats (just to view statistics) -------> quit ******* At this point we see the original md5 value is equal to the two copies, the journal entries are equivalent, etc.) ******* 10) md5sum ext3virgin -------> produces 'XXX' (has *not* changed) 11) md5sum ext3whore -------> produces 'XXX' (has *not* changed) ******* SO let's play with losetup, mounting, and loop. I couldn't figure out why folks were using losetup and then mounting via loop instead of just mounting the image via loop, so I ear marked that as a possible point of conflict ******* 12) cp -v ext3* ../ (I copied these up one directory in their 'virgin' states to be able to test them again with SMART later) 13) mount ext3virgin -o ro,nodev,noexec,noatime,loop /mnt/punkd0 -------> at this point it's mounted via 'loop' at the punkd0 directory read only 14) md5sum ext3virgin -------> produces 'XXX' (*same* value as original, it has not changed) 15) umount /mnt/punkd0 16) md5sum ext3virgin -------> produces 'XXX' (*same* original value) 17) losetup /dev/loop1 ext3whore 18) md5sum ext3whore -------> produces 'XXX' (*same* original value) 19) mount ext3whore -o ro,loop /mnt/punkd1 20) md5sum ext3whore -------> produces 'XXX' (*same* original value) 21) cmp -l ext3virgin ext3whore (note, no return, there is no difference between two yet) 22) umount /mnt/punkd1 23) losetup /dev/loop2 ext3whore 24) mount -t ext3 -o ro /dev/loop2 /mnt/punkd1 -------> again, I can't figure out why you'd mount it this way, but I wanted to try John's procedure and I was thinking this might be the culprit? (If I'm mounting via loop I specifiy the file itself, not the associated loop device file) 25) md5sum ext3whore -------> produces 'YYY' (*BINGO* - CHANGE ! ! ! ! !) 26) umount /mnt/punkd1 27) losetup /dev/loop3 ext3virgin 28) mount ext3virgin -o ro,loop /mnt/punkd0 29) md5sum ext3virgin -------> produces 'XXX' (same original value) 30)cmp -l ext3virgin ext3whore -------> produces '51228 1 2' 31) umount /mnt/punkd0 So my findings? Mounting the image file (volume) via the associated loop device file (#24 above) is where the change occurred. But as I mentioned earlier, my testing is 50% done. Why only 50% done? Because I tested this using files, not real logical volumes. I would highly recommend testing same methodology using logical volumes to support these findings. (I.E., validate using a boot cd, or by having an ext3 volume on your system you can test with) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM). http://calendar.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Ext3-users@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/ext3-users
