Monday 26 July 2010

Quick and dirty NFS share mounting on linux

To quickly access files on an NFS share which already exists:
# mkdir /mnt/remote-files && mount -t nfs 192.168.0.3:/raid/data/store /mnt/remote-files
This makes a local folder under /mnt/ and then mounts the NFS share "/raid/data/store" on that folder.  192.168.0.3 is of cours the machine hosting the NFS share.

Tuesday 20 July 2010

Scan hard drive for errors with badblocks

To scan a suspect hard drive for errors I use the linux badblocks program. Windows often seems to silently try to "fix" problems without telling you what if anything was wrong which does not help if I want to know if a hdd is starting to get bad sectors.  Be careful as this program in destructive mode will overwrite your data (but also give a more thorough test as it will try writing to the disk as well as reading)
#badblocks -nvs /dev/sda
-n = non destructive (read only mode)
-v = verbose
-s = Print out progress