[Astlinux-devel] Adding a "spinner" indicator when e2fsck is working

[Lonnie A. <li...@lo...>]

Hi Devs,

David made a good point, so I looked into piping the output of e2fsck to a "spinner" shell function, triggered by a newline and update no more often then ever second ...
--
spinner()
{
  local i sp secs nsecs line IFS

  i=0
  secs=0

  unset IFS
  while read line; do
    nsecs=$(cut -d. -f1 /proc/uptime)
    if [ $nsecs -ne $secs ]; then
      secs=$nsecs
      i=$(((i+1)%4))
      case $i in
        1) sp='-' ;;
        2) sp='\' ;;
        3) sp='|' ;;
        *) sp='/' ;;
      esac
      echo -ne " Working[${sp}] \r"
    fi
  done

  echo -ne "            \r"
}
--
It took some work getting this to work without printf, no date, no bash ${str:1:1}, etc., but it works with the current Busybox configs.

But ... here are the two places "spinner" would apply to ...

1) in the initrd, linuxrc ...
--
    e2fsck -y $ASTURW >/dev/null
    status=$?

    case $status in
--

2) in astlinux, /etc/rc ...
--
  echo "Checking $1"
  e2fsck -y $1 >/dev/null

  status="$?"

  case $status in
--

The plan would be to use:
--
e2fsck -y $1 | spinner
--
But the return value of $? is no longer from e2fsck, but rather spinner

You might try ...
--
( e2fsck -y $1 ; status="$?" ) | spinner
--
Almost, but now "status" is defined in a subshell which is not propagated up and lost.

A simple but ugly solution is to use a temp file ...
--
( e2fsck -y $1 ; echo "$?" > /tmp/e2fsck_status ) | spinner
status="$(cat /tmp/e2fsck_status)"
rm /tmp/e2fsck_status
--
but not to mention the initrd does not currently mount a /tmp filesystem. We would have to have to create and delete a tmpfs filesystem just to get the return value from e2fsck. :-(

I'm leaning toward leaving things as is, comments ?

Lonnie


On Aug 29, 2017, at 8:20 AM, Lonnie Abelbeck <li...@lo...> wrote:

> Hi David,
> 
> Agreed, no e2fsck output when it is forced to work for a long period is not ideal.  Thankfully this is a very rare occurrence.
> 
> If we can come up with a clever spinning wheel or such counting the lines e2fsck generates might be a good addition.
> 
> Recall this all occurs in the "initrd", so the available packages and BusyBox config is quite limited.
> 
> Any further discussion on this idea should move to the astlinux-devel list.
> 
> Lonnie
> 
> 
> On Aug 29, 2017, at 7:48 AM, David Kerr <Da...@Ke...> wrote:
> 
>> Is that a good idea (redirecting e2fsck to null)?  15 minutes is a long time to wait with no indication of anything happening.
>> 
>> David
>> 
>> On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 8:33 AM, Lonnie Abelbeck <li...@lo...> wrote:
>> Hi Tim,
>> 
>> Yes, it was running "e2fsck" with stdout redirected to /dev/null so you did not see it working ... eventually e2fsck will return with a result code if left long enough.
>> 
>> Good to hear your filesystem is now clean, you might reboot once again to make sure the filesystem is good.
>> 
>> BTW, if the automatic e2fsck repair did not work, here is the manual fallback procedure:
>> --
>> ## reboot, and quickly when the RUNNIX boot menu appears type "shell"
>> boot: shell
>> 
>> ## Wait for a "runnix# " CLI prompt.
>> ## determine the first Linux ext2 partition, usually always /dev/sda2
>> runnix# findfs LABEL=ASTURW
>> 
>> ## using the findfs result, run e2fsck manually, you may want to add -y or -p options
>> runnix# e2fsck /dev/sda2
>> 
>> ## output a list of options for e2fsck
>> runnix# e2fsck
>> Usage: e2fsck [-panyrcdfktvDFV] [-b superblock] [-B blocksize]
>>                [-l|-L bad_blocks_file] [-C fd] [-j external_journal]
>>                [-E extended-options] [-z undo_file] device
>> 
>> Emergency help:
>> -p                   Automatic repair (no questions)
>> -n                   Make no changes to the filesystem
>> -y                   Assume "yes" to all questions
>> -c                   Check for bad blocks and add them to the badblock list
>> -f                   Force checking even if filesystem is marked clean
>> -v                   Be verbose
>> -b superblock        Use alternative superblock
>> -B blocksize         Force blocksize when looking for superblock
>> -j external_journal  Set location of the external journal
>> -l bad_blocks_file   Add to badblocks list
>> -L bad_blocks_file   Set badblocks list
>> -z undo_file         Create an undo file
>> 
>> ## Depending on how you initially configured AstLinux, check if you also have a ASTKD partition
>> ## (typically /dev/sda3 if it exists)
>> runnix# findfs LABEL=ASTKD
>> ## If the ASTKD label exists repeat the e2fsck steps above using the ASTKD label partition.
>> 
>> ## reboot by issuing "exit"
>> runnix# exit
>> --
>> 
>> Lonnie
>> 
>> 
>> On Aug 29, 2017, at 7:02 AM, Tim Turpin <tt...@z-...> wrote:
>> 
>>> Never mind.  After sitting at that point for about 15 minutes, it somehow recovered and finished booting up.  All seems well now.
>>> 
>>> From: Tim Turpin [mailto:tt...@z-...]
>>> Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2017 7:34 AM
>>> To: ast...@li...
>>> Subject: [Astlinux-users] ASTLinux stopped booting
>>> 
>>> We took a power hit on our test system yesterday, and now it will only load up to a certain point and stops with the following screen: