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+<TITLE>Checking filesystem integrity with fsck</TITLE>
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+<B> Next:</B> <A NAME="tex2html910" HREF="node48.html">Checking for disk errors </A>
+<B>Up:</B> <A NAME="tex2html908" HREF="node41.html">Filesystems</A>
+<B> Previous:</B> <A NAME="tex2html902" HREF="node46.html">Mounting and unmounting</A>
+<BR> <P>
+<A NAME="1685">&#160;</A><H2><A NAME="SECTION00586000000000000000">Checking filesystem integrity with <tt>fsck</tt></A></H2>
+<P>
+ Filesystems are complex creatures, and as such, they tend to be
+ somewhat error-prone. A filesystem's correctness and validity
+ can be checked using the <tt>fsck</tt><A NAME="1687">&#160;</A> command. It can be
+ instructed to repair any minor problems it finds, and to
+ alert the user if there any unrepairable problems. Fortunately,
+ the code to implement filesystems is debugged quite
+ effectively, so there are seldom any problems at all, and they
+ are usually caused by power failures, failing hardware, or
+ operator errors; for example, by not shutting down the system
+ properly.
+<P>
+ Most systems are setup to run <tt>fsck</tt><A NAME="1689">&#160;</A> automatically at
+ boot time, so that any errors are detected (and hopefully
+ corrected) before the system is used. Use of a corrupted
+ filesystem tends to make things worse: if the data structures
+ are messed up, using the filesystem will probably mess them
+ up even more, resulting in more data loss. However,
+ <tt>fsck</tt><A NAME="1691">&#160;</A> can take a while to run on big filesystems, and
+ since errors almost never occur if the system has been shut
+ down properly, a couple of tricks are used to avoid doing the
+ checks in such cases. The first is that if the file <tt>/etc/fastboot</tt><A NAME="1693">&#160;</A>
+ exists, no checks are made. The second is that the ext2 filesystem
+ has a special marker in its superblock that tells whether
+ the filesystem was unmounted properly after the previous mount.
+ This allows <tt>e2fsck</tt><A NAME="1695">&#160;</A> (the version of <tt>fsck</tt><A NAME="1697">&#160;</A> for
+ the ext2 filesystem) to avoid checking the filesystem if
+ the flag indicates that the unmount was done (the assumption
+ being that a proper unmount indicates no problems). Whether
+ the <tt>/etc/fastboot</tt><A NAME="1699">&#160;</A> trick works on your system depends on
+ your startup scripts, but the ext2 trick works every time
+ you use <tt>e2fsck</tt><A NAME="1701">&#160;</A>--it has to be explicitly bypassed with
+ an option to <tt>e2fsck</tt><A NAME="1703">&#160;</A> to be avoided. (See the <em>e2fsck</em><A NAME="1705">&#160;</A>
+ man page for details on how.)
+<P>
+ The automatic checking only works for the filesystems that are
+ mounted automatically at boot time. Use <tt>fsck</tt><A NAME="1707">&#160;</A> manually
+ to check other filesystems, e.g., floppies.
+<P>
+ If <tt>fsck</tt><A NAME="1709">&#160;</A> finds unrepairable problems, you need either
+ in-depth knowlege of how filesystems work in general,
+ and the type of the corrupt filesystem in particular, or
+ good backups. The latter is easy (although sometimes tedious)
+ to arrange, the former can sometimes be arranged via a friend,
+ the Linux newsgroups and mailing lists,
+ or some other source of support, if you don't have the
+ know-how yourself. I'd like to tell you more
+ about it, but my lack of education and experience in this regard
+ hinders me. The <tt>debugfs</tt><A NAME="1711">&#160;</A> program by Theodore T'so
+ should be useful.
+<P>
+ <tt>fsck</tt><A NAME="1713">&#160;</A> must only be run on unmounted filesystems, never on
+ mounted filesystems (with the exception of the read-only root
+ during startup). This is because it accesses the raw
+ disk, and can therefore modify the filesystem without the
+ operating system realizing it. There <em>will</em> be trouble,
+ if the operating system is confused.
+<P>
+<HR><A NAME="tex2html909" HREF="node48.html"><IMG WIDTH=37 HEIGHT=24 ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="next" SRC="./next_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME="tex2html907" HREF="node41.html"><IMG WIDTH=26 HEIGHT=24 ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="up" SRC="./up_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME="tex2html901" HREF="node46.html"><IMG WIDTH=63 HEIGHT=24 ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="previous" SRC="./previous_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME="tex2html911" HREF="node1.html"><IMG WIDTH=65 HEIGHT=24 ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="contents" SRC="./contents_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME="tex2html912" HREF="node114.html"><IMG WIDTH=43 HEIGHT=24 ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="index" SRC="./index_motif.gif"></A> <BR>
+<B> Next:</B> <A NAME="tex2html910" HREF="node48.html">Checking for disk errors </A>
+<B>Up:</B> <A NAME="tex2html908" HREF="node41.html">Filesystems</A>
+<B> Previous:</B> <A NAME="tex2html902" HREF="node46.html">Mounting and unmounting</A>
+<P><ADDRESS>
+<I>Lars Wirzenius <BR>
+Sat Nov 15 02:32:11 EET 1997</I>
+</ADDRESS>
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