Why would a device file in RH ES 4 have a non-zero size

[A.Fadyushin at it-centre.ru]

You say that e2fsck did not found problems. What is the file size after
e2fsck? E2fsck may clear the file size without informing the user about
the correction. The non-zero sizes of device files are not allowed on
EXT2 filesystem. According to the e2fsprogs documentation such a
situation (non-zero size of a device file) should be found and corrected
since e2fsprogs version 1.19. 
>From the e2fsck ver. 1.19 (July 13, 2000) documentation:
"E2fsck now checks if special devices have a non-zero size, and offers
to clear the size field if it finds such an inode."

Alexey Fadyushin.
Brainbench MVP for Linux.
http://www.brainbench.com.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: redhat-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:redhat-list-
> bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of David Tonhofer, m-plify S.A.
> Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2005 3:46 PM
> To: redhat-list at redhat.com
> Subject: Why would a device file in RH ES 4 have a non-zero size
> 
> A simple question but mystifying for me:
> 
>   "Why would a device file in RH ES 4 have a non-zero size"
> 
> Context:
> 
> The device file in question has been created by an rsync backup.
> 
> The original device file
> (e.g. /dev/agpgart)
> as seen through stat(1) shows:
> 
>    Size: 0 Blocks: 0   "character special file"
> 
> The copy of the device file
> (e.g. /var/archive/hourly.0/foomachine/dev/agpgart)
> as seen through stat(1) shows:
> 
>    Size: 0 Blocks: 8   "character special file"
> 
> This is a pure ext2/ext3 filesystem question actually. Why should
> ext2 allocate 8 blocks to a file that is in essence just an inode?
> 
> This phenomenon is common to all the device file copies. All of
> them are 8 blocks large.
> 
> I check the filesystem with ext2fsck: no problems found.
> 
> Anyone who can help me scratch this itch?
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> -- David
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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