FSCK(8) - phpMan

FSCK(8)                      System Administration                     FSCK(8)

NAME
       fsck - check and repair a Linux filesystem
SYNOPSIS
       fsck [-lrsAVRTMNP] [-C [fd]] [-t fstype] [filesystem...]  [--] [fs-spe-
       cific-options]
DESCRIPTION
       fsck is used to check and optionally repair one or more Linux  filesys-
       tems.   filesys  can  be  a device name (e.g.  /dev/hdc1, /dev/sdb2), a
       mount point (e.g.  /, /usr, /home), or an ext2 label or UUID  specifier
       (e.g.   UUID=8868abf6-88c5-4a83-98b8-bfc24057f7bd or LABEL=root).  Nor-
       mally, the fsck program will try to  handle  filesystems  on  different
       physical  disk  drives  in  parallel to reduce the total amount of time
       needed to check all of them.
       If no filesystems are specified on the command line, and the -A  option
       is  not  specified,  fsck  will  default  to  checking  filesystems  in
       /etc/fstab serially.  This is equivalent to the -As options.
       The exit code returned by fsck is the sum of the following conditions:
              0      No errors
              1      Filesystem errors corrected
              2      System should be rebooted
              4      Filesystem errors left uncorrected
              8      Operational error
              16     Usage or syntax error
              32     Checking canceled by user request
              128    Shared-library error
       The exit code returned when multiple filesystems  are  checked  is  the
       bit-wise OR of the exit codes for each filesystem that is checked.
       In  actuality,  fsck  is  simply a front-end for the various filesystem
       checkers (fsck.fstype) available under Linux.  The  filesystem-specific
       checker  is  searched for in /sbin first, then in /etc/fs and /etc, and
       finally in the directories listed in  the  PATH  environment  variable.
       Please  see  the  filesystem-specific  checker manual pages for further
       details.
OPTIONS
       -l     Lock the whole-disk  device  by  an  exclusive  flock(2).   This
              option  can be used with one device only (this means that -A and
              -l are mutually exclusive).  This  option  is  recommended  when
              more  fsck(8)  instances  are  executed  in  the same time.  The
              option is ignored when used for multiple  devices  or  for  non-
              rotating disks.  fsck does not lock underlying devices when exe-
              cuted to check stacked devices (e.g. MD or DM) --  this  feature
              is not implemented yet.
       -r     Report certain statistics for each fsck when it completes. These
              statistics include the exit status, the maximum run set size (in
              kilobytes),  the  elapsed all-clock time and the user and system
              CPU time used by the fsck run. For example:
              /dev/sda1: status 0, rss 92828, real  4.002804,  user  2.677592,
              sys 0.86186
       -s     Serialize  fsck  operations.   This  is  a  good idea if you are
              checking multiple filesystems and the checkers are in an  inter-
              active  mode.   (Note:  e2fsck(8) runs in an interactive mode by
              default.  To make e2fsck(8) run in a non-interactive  mode,  you
              must  either specify the -p or -a option, if you wish for errors
              to be corrected automatically, or the -n option if you do not.)
       -t fslist
              Specifies the type(s) of filesystem to be checked.  When the  -A
              flag  is  specified,  only  filesystems  that  match  fslist are
              checked.  The fslist parameter  is  a  comma-separated  list  of
              filesystems  and  options specifiers.  All of the filesystems in
              this comma-separated list may be prefixed by a negation operator
              'no'  or  '!',  which  requests  that only those filesystems not
              listed in fslist will be checked.  If none of the filesystems in
              fslist  is  prefixed  by  a  negation  operator, then only those
              listed filesystems will be checked.
              Options  specifiers  may  be  included  in  the  comma-separated
              fslist.   They  must  have  the  format  opts=fs-option.   If an
              options specifier is present, then only filesystems  which  con-
              tain  fs-option  in their mount options field of /etc/fstab will
              be checked.  If the options specifier is prefixed by a  negation
              operator, then only those filesystems that do not have fs-option
              in their mount options field of /etc/fstab will be checked.
              For example, if opts=ro appears in fslist, then only filesystems
              listed in /etc/fstab with the ro option will be checked.
              For compatibility with Mandrake distributions whose boot scripts
              depend upon an unauthorized UI change to the fsck program, if  a
              filesystem  type of loop is found in fslist, it is treated as if
              opts=loop were specified as an argument to the -t option.
              Normally, the  filesystem  type  is  deduced  by  searching  for
              filesys  in  the  /etc/fstab  file  and  using the corresponding
              entry.  If the type can not be deduced, and there is only a sin-
              gle  filesystem given as an argument to the -t option, fsck will
              use the specified filesystem type.  If this type is  not  avail-
              able, then the default filesystem type (currently ext2) is used.
       -A     Walk  through  the /etc/fstab file and try to check all filesys-
              tems in one run.  This option is typically used from the /etc/rc
              system  initialization  file,  instead  of multiple commands for
              checking a single filesystem.
              The root filesystem will be checked first unless the  -P  option
              is  specified  (see  below).   After  that,  filesystems will be
              checked in the order specified  by  the  fs_passno  (the  sixth)
              field  in  the  /etc/fstab  file.   Filesystems with a fs_passno
              value of 0 are skipped and are not checked at all.   Filesystems
              with  a  fs_passno value of greater than zero will be checked in
              order, with filesystems with the lowest fs_passno  number  being
              checked  first.  If there are multiple filesystems with the same
              pass number, fsck  will  attempt  to  check  them  in  parallel,
              although it will avoid running multiple filesystem checks on the
              same physical disk.
              fsck does not check stacked devices (RAIDs,  dm-crypt,  ...)  in
              parallel    with    any    other    device.    See   below   for
              FSCK_FORCE_ALL_PARALLEL setting.  The /sys filesystem is used to
              detemine dependencies between devices.
              Hence, a very common configuration in /etc/fstab files is to set
              the root filesystem to have a fs_passno value of 1  and  to  set
              all other filesystems to have a fs_passno value of 2.  This will
              allow fsck to automatically run filesystem checkers in  parallel
              if  it  is  advantageous  to do so.  System administrators might
              choose not to use this configuration if they need to avoid  mul-
              tiple  filesystem checks running in parallel for some reason ---
              for example, if the machine in question is short  on  memory  so
              that excessive paging is a concern.
              fsck  normally does not check whether the device actually exists
              before calling a filesystem specific  checker.   Therefore  non-
              existing devices may cause the system to enter filesystem repair
              mode during boot if the filesystem specific  checker  returns  a
              fatal  error.  The /etc/fstab mount option nofail may be used to
              have fsck skip non-existing devices.  fsck also skips non-exist-
              ing devices that have the special filesystem type auto.
       -C [fd]
              Display  completion/progress  bars for those filesystem checkers
              (currently only for ext2 and ext3)  which  support  them.   fsck
              will  manage  the  filesystem  checkers so that only one of them
              will display a progress bar at a time.  GUI front-ends may spec-
              ify  a file descriptor fd, in which case the progress bar infor-
              mation will be sent to that file descriptor.
       -M     Do not check mounted filesystems and return an exit  code  of  0
              for mounted filesystems.
       -N     Don't execute, just show what would be done.
       -P     When  the  -A flag is set, check the root filesystem in parallel
              with the other filesystems.  This is not the safest thing in the
              world  to  do,  since  if the root filesystem is in doubt things
              like the e2fsck(8) executable might be corrupted!   This  option
              is  mainly provided for those sysadmins who don't want to repar-
              tition the root filesystem to be small  and  compact  (which  is
              really the right solution).
       -R     When  checking  all  filesystems with the -A flag, skip the root
              filesystem.  (This is useful in case  the  root  filesystem  has
              already been mounted read-write.)
       -T     Don't show the title on startup.
       -V     Produce  verbose  output, including all filesystem-specific com-
              mands that are executed.
       fs-specific-options
              Options which are not understood  by  fsck  are  passed  to  the
              filesystem-specific  checker.  These options must not take argu-
              ments, as there is no way for fsck to be able to properly  guess
              which options take arguments and which don't.
              Options  and  arguments  which  follow  the  --  are  treated as
              filesystem-specific options to be passed to the  filesystem-spe-
              cific checker.
              Please  note  that fsck is not designed to pass arbitrarily com-
              plicated options to  filesystem-specific  checkers.   If  you're
              doing something complicated, please just execute the filesystem-
              specific checker directly.  If you pass fsck some horribly  com-
              plicated  options  and  arguments,  and  it  doesn't do what you
              expect, don't bother reporting it as a bug.  You're almost  cer-
              tainly doing something that you shouldn't be doing with fsck.
       Options  to  different filesystem-specific fsck's are not standardized.
       If in doubt, please consult the man pages  of  the  filesystem-specific
       checker.   Although not guaranteed, the following options are supported
       by most filesystem checkers:
       -a     Automatically repair the filesystem without any  questions  (use
              this  option with caution).  Note that e2fsck(8) supports -a for
              backward compatibility only.  This option is mapped to  e2fsck's
              -p  option  which is safe to use, unlike the -a option that some
              filesystem checkers support.
       -n     For some filesystem-specific checkers, the -n option will  cause
              the fs-specific fsck to avoid attempting to repair any problems,
              but simply report such problems to stdout.  This is however  not
              true  for  all  filesystem-specific  checkers.   In  particular,
              fsck.reiserfs(8) will not report any corruption  if  given  this
              option.  fsck.minix(8) does not support the -n option at all.
       -r     Interactively  repair  the  filesystem  (ask for confirmations).
              Note: It is generally a bad idea to use this option if  multiple
              fsck's  are  being  run  in  parallel.   Also  note that this is
              e2fsck's default behavior; it supports this option for  backward
              compatibility reasons only.
       -y     For  some filesystem-specific checkers, the -y option will cause
              the fs-specific fsck to  always  attempt  to  fix  any  detected
              filesystem corruption automatically.  Sometimes an expert may be
              able to do better driving the fsck manually.  Note that not  all
              filesystem-specific checkers implement this option.  In particu-
              lar fsck.minix(8) and  fsck.cramfs(8)  do  not  support  the  -y
              option as of this writing.
FILES
       /etc/fstab.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       The  fsck  program's  behavior is affected by the following environment
       variables:
       FSCK_FORCE_ALL_PARALLEL
              If this environment variable is set, fsck will attempt to  check
              all  of  the  specified  filesystems  in parallel, regardless of
              whether the filesystems appear to be on the same device.   (This
              is  useful  for RAID systems or high-end storage systems such as
              those sold by companies such as IBM  or  EMC.)   Note  that  the
              fs_passno value is still used.
       FSCK_MAX_INST
              This  environment  variable  will  limit  the  maximum number of
              filesystem checkers that can  be  running  at  one  time.   This
              allows  configurations  which  have  a  large number of disks to
              avoid fsck starting too many filesystem checkers at once,  which
              might overload CPU and memory resources available on the system.
              If this value is zero, then an unlimited number of processes can
              be  spawned.  This is currently the default, but future versions
              of fsck may attempt to automatically determine how many filesys-
              tem  checks  can  be run based on gathering accounting data from
              the operating system.
       PATH   The PATH environment variable is used to find filesystem  check-
              ers.   A  set  of  system directories are searched first: /sbin,
              /sbin/fs.d, /sbin/fs, /etc/fs, and /etc.  Then the set of direc-
              tories found in the PATH environment are searched.
       FSTAB_FILE
              This  environment  variable  allows  the system administrator to
              override the standard location of the /etc/fstab  file.   It  is
              also useful for developers who are testing fsck.
       LIBBLKID_DEBUG=0xffff
              enables debug output.
       LIBMOUNT_DEBUG=0xffff
              enables debug output.
SEE ALSO
       fstab(5),  mkfs(8),  fsck.ext2(8)  or fsck.ext3(8) or e2fsck(8), cramf-
       sck(8),   fsck.minix(8),   fsck.msdos(8),   fsck.jfs(8),   fsck.nfs(8),
       fsck.vfat(8), fsck.xfs(8), fsck.xiafs(8), reiserfsck(8).
AUTHOR
       Theodore Ts'o <tytso AT mit.edu>
AVAILABILITY
       The  fsck  command  is  part of the util-linux package and is available
       from Linux Kernel  Archive  <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-
       linux/>.

util-linux                       February 2009                         FSCK(8)