disk inconsistency - should 'fsck' always executed with -y ?

[Derek Martin]

On Fri, 2 Feb 2001, Glenn Burkhardt wrote:


> Is there some reason I shouldn't modify the boot scripts to use the
> '-y' option all the time?  I've never investigated what I can do
> otherwise.  In any case, for production systems that are used by
> non-computer types, this has been a continuing annoyance.  I end up
> telling folks to type in some gobbly gook, and the computer fixes
> itself.  Shouldn't the computer just always fix itself?

Ordinarily at boot time, the system will run fsck -A to check all
filesystems in parallel.  This speeds up the process a great deal (if you
have multiple physical disk drives, otherwise it doesn't matter), and
ordinarily is all that is necessary, so is generally desireable to run it
this way.  But running with the -A option will not allow you make changes
to the filesystem... if an inconsistency is found, you must run fsck
manually.

When you have a real problem, you should run fsck -fy /dev/whatever on the
filesystem named with the inconsistency, which will only check that
filesystem, and automatically repair any problems (assuming it can). This
mode of operation does not allow parallel checking, AFAIK.


-- 
Derek Martin
Senior System Administrator
Mission Critical Linux
martin at MissionCriticalLinux.com 

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