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Comment by asdfaoeu | Hacker News Reader

The correct response is to stop writing to the filesystem. They mean BUG as in it crashes the kernel. Having said that most Linux machines will not let you mount filesystems unless you are root or physically present so they don't seem like major concerns although should be fixed.

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> The correct response is to stop writing to the filesystem.

Stop writing AND READING, as what's read can be corrupted and yet written or used elsewhere.

> They mean BUG as in it crashes the kernel.

I know what BUG means. There's a reason it exists: to make sure that code in an invalid state doesn't do something really dangerous. assert() is very useful.

It should be noted that we've hit that BUG() assertion on ext4 using the mount option errors=remount-ro - it should just not be possible to trigger an invalid state causing your kernel to Oops when you've configured it like this.

See Vegard's discussion with Theodore Ts'o about this: http://marc.info/?l=linux-ext4&m=144898400422842&w=2

I'm awed by your work but this is really an abomination:

"Unfortunately, company policy prohibits me from sharing the actual code." (http://marc.info/?l=linux-ext4&m=145007745502639&w=2)

This was true before the advent of mount namespaces, but is now incorrect: See namespace(7) or something like:

    http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22889241/linux-understanding-the-mount-namespace-clone-clone-newns-flag

    http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-mount-namespaces/

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