Re: [PLUG] OT (but not really): Tough Interview questions

[Dan Widyono <dan@widyono.net>]

> "Give 5 different reasons why you could not be able to write to a file
> on an ext3 FS."
> 
> There were a few: if the file is flagged as immutable, if the file is
> flagged append-only but changes are being made with the write, if the
> disk is full... and i might have even said 'if the machine is powered
> off'.  I missed an important one, however: "if the FS is mounted
> read-only,"

Two wacky ones; I checked the first, and encountered the second:

...if the file is still held open while another process unlinks it from
underneath.  Sure you could write to a new inode tree with the same filename,
but it won't be the same file, pedantically.  :) And the current process
holding it open can continue writing to the now-unlinked file all it wants,
but that's useless (for that particular file; it can always be copied in
memory by that process, but then again, it's another file).

...if the FS is found to be corrupted in just the wrong place.


If those original three questions that Mag provided were given out of
context, I'd say they're next to useless.  I personally want to see how
someone finds out the information needed, given appropriate resources
(independence, creative thinking, clear thinking under pressure).

Dan W.
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