[CentOS] Urgent: filesystem corruption on 2.6.18-128.1.6.el5

Gordon Messmer wrote:
> I opened bug 494927 with Red Hat after seeing this kernel error on two 
> different hosts, just a few days after updating or installing CentOS 5.3:
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=494927

In an attempt to confirm this bug, I set up a system under KVM and 
started three loops to generate filesystem activity.  I ran bonnie++ as 
two different users in separate directories under /var/tmp, and an 
additional loop copying /usr to a directory under /var/tmp and then 
removing it.  The /var filesystem became corrupt relatively quickly.

I'm now nearly certain that there is a severe filesystem corruption bug 
in 2.6.18-128.1.6.el5.  Please, if you are running this kernel, reboot 
your systems into single user mode and check your filesystems with "fsck 
-f".  Your filesystems may appear clean despite corruption.  My test 
system exhibited this behavior.  Even though the corruption should have 
been obvious (files could not be deleted), the FS was marked clean.