Quelling Filesystem Activity

[Doug Gwyn <gwyn>]

> Here's the problem:  I want to dump a filesystem while running
> multi-user.  I specifically *do*not* want to dump an active filesystem,
> so I must be able to unmount it while it is potentially active.
> 
> Here's what I need:  I want a utility that will aid me in quelling
> filesystem activity so that I can unmount it.  The approach is to
> examine /dev/kmem to identify pids of processes that have open files
> in that filesystem, kill them, and unmount the fs.

Killing an innocent process that is doing possibly useful work
just so you can unmount the filesystem is NOT NICE.

How about:

	wall 'Please get away from filesystem X so I can back it up.'
	until umount X; do sleep 15; done
	echo 'Ok, back X up.'