From: eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil (Eric Youngdale) Subject: Re: fdisk/ext2fs/64Meg-limit problem Date: Fri, 14 May 1993 20:12:08 GMT
In article <marcf.737343804@yorku.ca> marcf@nexus.yorku.ca (Marc G Fournier) writes:
>sct@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Stephen Tweedie) writes:
>
>>***ALWAYS REBOOT AFTER CHANGING THE PARTITION TABLES!!!!!!***
>
> is this a 'feature' of Linux that will eventually go away?
>again, based on experience with Commercial Unix's...it only seems to
>be a requirement (although not to disturbing of one) of Linux...or
>does the company I work for just get luck because we don't reboot
>after adding/changing fdisk parameters?
Actually, it has gone away, at least under some circumstances. There
is an ioctl which causes the kernel to reread the partition tables, and fdisk
tries to use this. The ioctl will only work if there are no open files on the
physical disk, and none of the partitions are mounted. If the kernel cannot do
the ioctl because of open files, then you are given a message telling you to
reboot.
If you are unsure, then a reboot is always the safe thing to do.
-Eric
--
"When Grigor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he
found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin."
-F. Kafka