OpenBSD 7.4 amd64 I have just noticed that mount(8) has a softdep option for FFS file systems. And I saw this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_updates where OpenBSD is mentioned.
However the default /etc/fstab does not make use of it. We have been discussing how to deal with unexpected system crashes/loss of power/etc. and found that with a probability of significantly greater than zero such an event will cause inconsistent file systems, sometimes irreparable, with data loss or worse with lurking modified files that may be noticed much later. So I’d like to know if adding the softdep option for the FFS file systems in /etc/fstab would improve the situation? Is anyone using this? Is there a reason it is not used by default? I realise that no solution will be 100%. Backups, snapshots from a powered down machine (in the case of VMs), etc. will still be required. But at least improving the odds of surviving an unexpected reboot without file system sync would help, unless there are drawbacks I am not aware of. I did see https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=157537250901987&w=2 are the comments there still valid (for VMs using SSD storage)? Personally I would not mind a bit of memory usage and speed impact in exchange for a more robust system. Thanks! Mike
