System freezes when removing large numbers of hardlinked files on ext4

[Andrew Berry]

I'm running into an issue when attempting to remove a large number of hardlinked files on Jaunty. Here's the background:

- The server is running mdraid + lvm, with the file system under load formatted as ext4.
- I use a script to rsync a remote server with the --link-dest parameter daily.
- Once a month, I remove the oldest backups with a command such as sudo rm -rf 200906*.

Within a few minutes, the system stops responding to anything other than a ping. I attempted to get a kernel panic log by booting in single user mode and running 'setterm -blank' to disable power saving, but apparently when it panics it kills the display as well. I'm using a bluetooth keyboard, and the system won't respond to it either.

I didn't have any problems like this when the file system was previously formatted as ReiserFS. I should also note that I currently have e2fsprogs and its dependents installed from Karmic to avoid the resizing FS data loss bug. However, I don't think those packages are related to the current freeze.

I'll be posting more info soon, it just takes a long time for the server to check quotas after a crash :).

[Andrew Berry (andrewberry)]

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 9.04
Release: 9.04

$ apt-cache policy linux-image-generic
linux-image-generic:
  Installed: 2.6.28.14.19
  Candidate: 2.6.28.15.20
  Version table:
     2.6.28.15.20 0
        500 http://ubuntu.mirror.rafal.ca jaunty-updates/main Packages
 *** 2.6.28.14.19 0
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2.6.28.11.15 0
        500 http://ubuntu.mirror.rafal.ca jaunty/main Packages

Oh! I apparently have to upgrade (new kernel released less then a day ago), so we'll see if the ext4 fixes there help me out.

[Andrew Berry (andrewberry)]

Sweet - my issue is fixed by the new kernel, so I'm marking this as a duplicate. Sorry for the spam.