Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 248174
Unrecognized USB flash drives erase /etc/fstab (0 byte file).
Last modified: 2013-03-05 22:51:31 EST
Description of problem: When I put in a brand new Verbatim 4 GB flash drive in the USB port, my /etc/fstab gets erased. This also happened about two weeks ago with a 1 GB flash drive that had no name on it and I though it was a fluke but was usable in all Windows computers. The Verbatim 4 GB also works on all Windows computers. The Verbatim 512MB flash drive works with Red Hat ES 4.4 and Windows computers but the Verbatim 4 GB does not. The product info that came with the Verbatim 4 GB says that I have to download a Linux driver, I was unable to find this driver so I decided to try my 4GB flash drive anyways and it erased my /etc/fstab and made my / partition 100% full. If the kernel cannot recognize my flash drive it should just put up a message, not presume that it can add a new entry in the /etc/fstab like it does when I plugged in the Verbatim 512 MB flash drive, then when the kernel realizes after it has eliminated the old /etc/fstab in memory and on disk that it can't recognize the USB device, it has only an emptied buffer to write out to /etc/fstab. Tom Kelly. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): RHEL-U4-i386-ES Nahant Update 4. How reproducible: Happens every time. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Put in a industry standard Verbatim 4 GB flash drive in a USB port. 2.The /etc/fstab file gets set to a file size of 0 bytes. 3. Actual results: Flash drive is not recognized and my / partition gets set to 100% capacity. Expected results: I can read and write to my flash drive or get an error message leaving the OS and the /etc/fstab unmolested. Additional info: I have saved a copy of my /etc/fstab before this happened so when you fix this bug can you tell me how to fix my system without rebooting. I can't overwrite /etc/fstab with the copy because my OS says that the / partition is 100% used.
My 4GB Verbatim USB Flash drives works for kernel 2.6.9-42.0.10.ELsmp and 2.6.9-55.EL however it does not work (as described above) for 2.6.9-5.ELsmp. Verbatim documentation states that this device will work with RedHat kernel 2.6 and above. The 2.6.9-5.ELsmp computer that does not work has special RAID drives and controllers on it because it is our DB machine.
From cat'ing /etc/redhat-release and looking at boot info, RHEL ES release 4 (Nahant Update 4) - 2.6.9-42.0.10.ELsmp and 2.6.9-5.ELsmp. RHEL ES release 4 (Nahant Update 5) - 2.6.9-55.EL. Also my partition may have been at 100% capacity before I inserted the flash drive. I do not want to test on that computer anymore however. I was able to do a mv command rather than a cp regarding my backup of /etc/fstab and when I rebooted all came up fine.
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