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DESCRIPTION

In "preen" mode the clean flag of each filesystem's superblock is examined and only those filesystems that are not marked clean are checked. Filesystems are marked clean when they are unmounted, when they have been mounted read-only, or when fsck runs on them successfully. If the -f option is specified, the filesystems will be checked regardless of the state of their clean flag.

The kernel takes care that only a restricted class of innocuous filesystem inconsistencies can happen unless hardware or software failures intervene. These are limited to the following:

• Unreferenced inodes
• Link counts in inodes too large
• Missing blocks in the free map
• Blocks in the free map also in files
• Counts in the super-block wrong

These are the only inconsistencies that fsck with the -p option will correct; if it encounters other inconsistencies, it exits with an abnormal return status and an automatic reboot will then fail. For each corrected inconsistency one or more lines will be printed identifying the filesystem on which the correction will take place, and the nature of the correction. After successfully correcting a filesystem, fsck will print the number of files on that filesystem, the number of used and free blocks, and the percentage of fragmentation.

If sent a QUIT signal, fsck will finish the filesystem checks, then exit with an abnormal return status that causes an automatic reboot to fail. This is useful when you want to finish the filesystem checks during an automatic reboot, but do not want the machine to come up multiuser after the checks complete.

If fsck receives a SIGINFO (see the “status” argument for stty(1)) signal, a line will be written to the standard output indicating the name of the device currently being checked, the current phase number and phase-specific progress information.

Without the -p option, fsck audits and interactively repairs inconsistent conditions for filesystems. If the filesystem is inconsistent the operator is prompted for concurrence before each correction is attempted. It should be noted that some of the corrective actions which are not correctable under the -p option will result in some loss of data. The amount and severity of data lost may be determined from the diagnostic output. The default action for each consistency correction is to wait for the operator to respond yes or no. If the operator does not have write permission on the filesystem fsck will default to a -n action.

Fsck has more consistency checks than its predecessors check, dcheck, fcheck, and icheck combined.

The following flags are interpreted by fsck.

-b

Use the block specified immediately after the flag as the super block for the filesystem. Block 32 is usually an alternate super block.

-c

Convert the filesystem to the specified level. Note that the level of a filesystem can only be raised.

There are currently four levels defined:

0

The filesystem is in the old (static table) format.

1

The filesystem is in the new (dynamic table) format.

2

The filesystem supports 32-bit uid's and gid's, short symbolic links are stored in the inode, and directories have an added field showing the file type.

3

If maxcontig is greater than one, build the free segment maps to aid in finding contiguous sets of blocks. If maxcontig is equal to one, delete any existing segment maps.

In interactive mode, fsck will list the conversion to be made and ask whether the conversion should be done. If a negative answer is given, no further operations are done on the filesystem. In preen mode, the conversion is listed and done if possible without user interaction. Conversion in preen mode is best used when all the filesystems are being converted at once. The format of a filesystem can be determined from the first line of output from dumpfs(8).

-f

Force fsck to check ‘clean’ filesystems when preening.

-l

Limit the number of parallel checks to the number specified in the following argument. By default, the limit is the number of disks, running one process per disk. If a smaller limit is given, the disks are checked round-robin, one filesystem at a time.

-L

Just print the "last mounted on" information and exit, do no other checking.

-m

Use the mode specified in octal immediately after the flag as the permission bits to use when creating the lost+found directory rather than the default 1777. In particular, systems that do not wish to have lost files accessible by all users on the system should use a more restrictive set of permissions such as 700.

-n

Assume a no response to all questions asked by fsck except for ‘CONTINUE?’, which is assumed to be affirmative; do not open the filesystem for writing.

-p

Preen filesystems (see above).

-y

Assume a yes response to all questions asked by fsck; this should be used with great caution as this is a free license to continue after essentially unlimited trouble has been encountered.

If no filesystems are given to fsck then a default list of filesystems is read from the file /etc/fstab.

Inconsistencies checked are as follows:

1. Blocks claimed by more than one inode or the free map.
2. Blocks claimed by an inode outside the range of the filesystem.
3. Incorrect link counts.
4. Size checks:
   • Directory size not a multiple of DIRBLKSIZ.
   • Partially truncated file.
5. Bad inode format.
6. Blocks not accounted for anywhere.
7. Directory checks:
   • File pointing to unallocated inode.
   • Inode number out of range.
   • Directories with unallocated blocks (holes).
   • Dot or dot-dot not the first two entries of a directory or having the wrong inode number.
8. Super Block checks:
   • More blocks for inodes than there are in the filesystem.
   • Bad free block map format.
   • Total free block and/or free inode count incorrect.

Orphaned files and directories (allocated but unreferenced) are, with the operator's concurrence, reconnected by placing them in the lost+found directory. The name assigned is the inode number. If the lost+found directory does not exist, it is created. If there is insufficient space its size is increased.

Because of inconsistencies between the block device and the buffer cache, the raw device should always be used.