FSCK(8) System Administration FSCK(8)
NAME
fsck.minix - check consistency of Minix filesystem
SYNOPSIS
fsck.minix [-larvsmf] device
DESCRIPTION
fsck.minix performs a consistency check for the Linux MINIX filesystem.
The current version supports the 14 character and 30 character filename
options.
The program assumes the filesystem is quiescent. fsck.minix should not
be used on a mounted device unless you can be sure nobody is writing to
it (and remember that the kernel can write to it when it searches for
files).
The device name will usually have the following form:
/dev/hda[1-63] (IDE disk 1)
/dev/hdb[1-63] (IDE disk 2)
/dev/sda[1-15] (SCSI disk 1)
/dev/sdb[1-15] (SCSI disk 2)
If the filesystem was changed (i.e., repaired), then fsck.minix will
print "FILE SYSTEM HAS CHANGED" and will sync(2) three times before
exiting. Since Linux does not currently have raw devices, there is no
need to reboot at this time.
WARNING
fsck.minix should not be used on a mounted filesystem. Using
fsck.minix on a mounted filesystem is very dangerous, due to the possi-
bility that deleted files are still in use, and can seriously damage a
perfectly good filesystem! If you absolutely have to run fsck.minix on
a mounted filesystem (i.e., the root filesystem), make sure nothing is
writing to the disk, and that no files are "zombies" waiting for dele-
tion.
OPTIONS
-l List all filenames.
-r Perform interactive repairs.
-a Perform automatic repairs. (This option implies -r and serves
to answer all of the questions asked with the default.) Note
that this can be extremely dangerous in the case of extensive
filesystem damage.
-v Be verbose.
-s Output super-block information.
-m Activate MINIX-like "mode not cleared" warnings.
-f Force a filesystem check even if the filesystem was marked as
valid (this marking is done by the kernel when the filesystem is
unmounted).
SEE ALSO
fsck(8), fsck.ext2(8), mkfs(8), mkfs.minix(8), mkfs.ext2(8), reboot(8)
DIAGNOSTICS
There are numerous diagnostic messages. The ones mentioned here are
the most commonly seen in normal usage.
If the device does not exist, fsck.minix will print "unable to read
super block". If the device exists, but is not a MINIX filesystem,
fsck.minix will print "bad magic number in super-block".
EXIT CODES
The exit code returned by fsck.minix is the sum of the following:
0 No errors
3 Filesystem errors corrected, system should be rebooted if
filesystem was mounted
4 Filesystem errors left uncorrected
7 Combination of exit codes 3 and 4
8 Operational error
16 Usage or syntax error
In point of fact, only 0, 3, 4, 7, 8, and 16 can ever be returned.
AUTHOR
Linus Torvalds (torvalds AT cs.fi)
Error code values by Rik Faith (faith AT cs.edu)
Added support for filesystem valid flag: Dr. Wettstein
(greg%wind.uucp AT plains.edu)
Check to prevent fsck of mounted filesystem added by Daniel Quinlan
(quinlan AT yggdrasil.com)
Minix v2 fs support by Andreas Schwab (schwab AT issan.uni-
dortmund.de), updated by Nicolai Langfeldt (janl AT math.no)
Portability patch by Russell King (rmk AT ecs.uk).
AVAILABILITY
The fsck.minix command is part of the util-linux package and is avail-
able from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.
util-linux July 1996 FSCK(8)