If I remember correctly, when the system restarts with fsck being required, it provides the command string you require to resolve the problem. That said, it's not the most helpful of programs. I've included the man page output below:
[root@jeeves /root]# man fsck
FSCK(
FSCK(
NAME
fsck - check and repair a Linux file system
SYNOPSIS
fsck [ -sACVRTNP ] [ -t fstype ] filesys [ ... ] [--] [ fsck-options ]
DESCRIPTION
fsck is used to check and optionally repair a one or more Linux file systems. 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 speci
fier (e.g. UUID=8868abf6-88c5-4a83-98b8-bfc24057f7bd or LABEL=root). The fsck program will try to run
filesystems on different physical disk drives in parallel to reduce total amount time to check all of the
filesystems.
The exit code returned by fsck is the sum of the following conditions:
0 - No errors
1 - File system errors corrected
2 - System should be rebooted
4 - File system errors left uncorrected
8 - Operational error
16 - Usage or syntax error
128 - Shared library error
The exit code returned when all file systems are checked using the -A option is the bit-wise OR of the
exit codes for each file system that is checked.
In actuality, fsck is simply a front-end for the various file system checkers (fsck.fstype) available
under Linux. The file system-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 file system-spe
cific checker manual pages for further details.
OPTIONS
-s Serialize fsck operations. This is a good idea if you checking multiple filesystems and the check
ers are in an interactive mode. (Note: e2fsck(
runs in an interactive mode by default. To make
e2fsck(
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 file system to be checked. When the -A flag is specified, only filesys
tems 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 all of the filesystems in fslist are not prefixed by a negation operator, then only
those filesystems listed in fslist will be checked.
Options specifiers may be included in the comma separated fslist. They must have the format
opts=fs-option, and may be prefixed by a negation operator. If an options specifier is present,
then only filesystems whose /etc/fstab entry do (or do not, if the options specifier was prefixed
by a negation operator) contain fs-option in their options field of the /etc/fstab file 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 single filesystem
given as an argument to the -t option, fsck will use the specified filesystem type. If this type
is not available, then the default file system type (currently ext2) is used.
-A Walk through the /etc/fstab file and try to check all file systems in one run. This option is typ
ically used from the /etc/rc system initalization file, instead of multiple commands for checking a
single file system.
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 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.
:
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 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 multiple 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.
-C Display completion/progress bars for those filesystems checkers (currently only for ext2) which
support them. Fsck will manage the filesystem checkers so that only one of them will display a
progress bar at a time.
-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(
executable might be corrupted! This option is mainly provided for those sysadmins who
don't want to repartition the root filesystem to be small and compact (which is really the right
solution).
-R When checking all file systems with the -A flag, skip the root file system (in case it's already
mounted read-write).
-T Don't show the title on startup.
-V Produce verbose output, including all file system-specific commands that are executed.
fsck-options
Options which which are not understood by fsck are passed to the filesystem-specific checker.
These arguments must not take arguments, as there is no way for fsck to be able to properly guess
which arguments take options and which don't.
Options and arguments which follow the -- are treated as file system-specific options to be passed
to the file system-specific checker.
Please note that fsck is not designed to pass arbitrarily complicated options to filesystem-spe
: cific checkers. If you're doing something complicated, please just execute the filesystem-specific
checker directly. If you pass fsck some horribly complicated option and arguments, and it doesn't
do what you expect, don't bother reporting it as a bug. You're almost certainly doing something
that you shouldn't be doing with fsck.
Currently, standardized file system-specific options are somewhat in flux. Although not guaranteed, the
following options are supported by most file system checkers:
-a Automatically repair the file system without any questions (use this option with caution). Note
that e2fsck(
supports -a for backwards compatibility only. This option is mapped to e2fsck's -p
option which is safe to use, unlike the -a option that most file system checkers support.
-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 backwards compatibility reasons only.
AUTHOR
Theodore Ts'o (tytso@mit.edu)
The manual page was shamelessly adapted from David Engel and Fred van Kempen's generic fsck front end pro
gram, which was in turn shamelessly adapted from Remy Card's version for the ext2 file system.
FILES
/etc/fstab.
SEE ALSO
fstab(5), mkfs(
, fsck.minix(
, fsck.ext2(
or e2fsck(
, fsck.xiafs(
.
E2fsprogs version 1.23 August 2001 1
Des Dougan
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