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My set up: An embedded device with flash memory on it. Flash is partitioned into ext3 filesystem partitions. Have busybox on it.

My Goal: To uncover errors /bugs/ problems on ext3 filesystems.

Linux version: Not the latest and greatest: linux-2.6.31

What tests should I run to uncover potential problems in the ext3 filesystem?

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"Using it" is a good way of testing. – Chris Down Feb 24 '12 at 23:16
@ChrisDown But that's not good enough! – abc Feb 25 '12 at 1:59
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fsck.ext3 -f? If absent from your system, find or build a suitable binary. Worst case you'll have to cross-compile one. – Ingmar Hupp Feb 25 '12 at 3:53
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I'm confused. Are you asking to seek out filesystem bugs or filesystem errors? – Chris Down Feb 25 '12 at 10:34
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Given how much ext3 has spread and how much it's used (including enterprise environments), you may be very hard-pressed to find bugs in the code. I've managed hundreds of ext3 filesystems and the only issues I ever encountered were due to one incident where bad (non-ECC) RAM corrupted data before it was committed to disk. And that wasn't even due to the filesystem. Have you considered looking at the kernel Changelog for the filesystem? – Alexios Mar 28 '12 at 10:24
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closed as not a real question by psusi, vonbrand, slm, Renan, Chris Down May 10 at 19:15

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

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Check out LTP (Linux Test Project), a collection of utilities to test all sorts of Linux subsystems (including filesystems). And yes, this is used routinely by the kernel developers, so unless you dig in and complete/extend some of the tests (or run an unusual setup) I guess you'll not find much in the way of unknown bugs. But knock yourself out.

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A good stress test could shake out some filesystem bugs. Checkout the stress tests available at the Linux Test Project. LTP's tests are listed here and there is a file system section.

As far as filesystem errors, try tests that simulate an unexpected power failure while a file is being written. You can do this by writing a script that continuously writes data to a file and then simulate the power failure by pulling the plug or doing a forced unmount of the file system (i.e "umount -f").

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