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Can Ubuntu be configured to protect uSD card on Orange Pi Zero (or similar board) from a power outage?

us flag

I have an Orange Pi Zero board running Ubuntu (Xenial??) on a micro SD card. When the power is interrupted, the filesystem gets messed up in subtle ways. You can still login and cd around in the filesystem and do a "reboot" or "poweroff" command but certain files we created do not exist anymore. Is there any way to "freeze" the important parts of the filesystem to make it more robust in case the power is interrupted?

guiverc avatar
cn flag
[Ubuntu 16.04 LTS has reached the end of it's *standard* support life](https://fridge.ubuntu.com/2021/03/13/extended-security-maintenance-for-ubuntu-16-04-xenial-xerus-begins-april-30-2021/) thus is now off-topic here unless your question is specific to helping you move to a supported release of Ubuntu. Ubuntu 16.04 ESM support is available, but not on-topic here, see https://askubuntu.com/help/on-topic See also https://ubuntu.com/blog/ubuntu-16-04-lts-transitions-to-extended-security-maintenance-esm
guiverc avatar
cn flag
FYI: Ubuntu Core has most of the system in read-only; with most things run in containers (ie. *snaps*) being ideal for embedded systems - https://ubuntu.com/core (it also has a longer life; ie. Ubuntu Core 16 is supported until 2026 unlike *xenial* which only has ESM support now and is thus off-topic here)
in flag
One way to accomplish this would be to disable write caching, but I would not recommend this for any device where an OS is installed. This would also be a bad choice if writing to a database engine such as MySQL or PostgreSQL, as an interruption in power could render an entire database inaccessible.
user535733 avatar
cn flag
There's a whole industry around the easier half of the problem -- reducing power interruptions and making it possible to gracefully preserve the filesystem.
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