Ubuntu server and power off

[Colin Law]

On 7 May 2012 10:52, James Plate <james.plate at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 05/07/2012 05:07 AM, Colin Law wrote:
>> 2012/5/7 James Plate <james.plate at gmail.com>:
>>> On 05/07/2012 03:31 AM, Antonio Fernández Pérez wrote:
>>>> Hi everybody,
>>>>
>>>> I have configured a machine to print Wi-Fi tickets with Ubuntu Server
>>>> and OpenBox desktop manager that launch a Java graphical application
>>>> on boot. If the machine will be shutdown by power button, what effects
>>>> could to have? Could it affect to some partition? Could corrupt the
>>>> system and not start? There are some tool to repair the boot and make
>>>> that the system boots normally?
>>>>  [pointless Spanish (I think) legal rubbish deleted - even more pointless than normal since this is an English speaking list]
>>> Yes it most certainly can cause hardware issues, including but not
>>> limited to corrupted sectors on your hard disk.
>> Though in practice it is very rare that it actually causes any
>> problems with modern file systems.  As far as I can remember I have
>> never lost anything on Linux when this happens except for data in
>> files on which I was currently working, or once when the system was
>> trashed by a power failure in the middle of a kernel upgrade.  But
>> that was caused by the fact that I had a half installed kernel, which
>> was not good.
>>
>> @James, what problems can it cause apart from corrupting data being
>> written at the time of failure?
>>
>> Colin
>>
> I'm sure it's a rare occurence with new hardware but historically it
> could physically damage the disk platter, espescially if the disk is
> being accessed when a shutdown was forced/power lost. I could be out of
> date with my info. I've just made it a habit for a long time to not make
> a habit of hard resets/shutdowns.

Certainly one should not make a habit of it, but I don't think modern
disks will be physically damaged by an unexpected power down.

Colin