Not checking filesystems at startup by default

con · 2006-10-23 11:08:50

Not sure if this is really the right place to discuss this but...here goes...
I had some troubles with one of my harddrives and while troubleshooting I noticed that in fstab, fsck isn't performed on any partition at all... Which got me wondering if that is really sane? Isn't it a bit risky not to do a fsck every bootup? Yes, it speeds up booting quite alot but is it really worth it? Anyone got any opinions?

stavrosg · 2006-10-23 13:04:39

Normally, the ext3 partitions will fsck automagically on startup every time you reach the mount timer written on the superblock (man tune2fs to see how to set it), unless you changed the options in fstab.

con · 2006-10-23 13:11:34

I'm running reiserfs on all partitions and I edited fstab...

Tatey · 2006-10-23 13:44:07

According to the fstab man page, it's appropriate to set safe dump/pass parameters on each partition to check filesystem integrity.

The sixth field, (fs_passno), is used by the fsck(8) program to determine the order in which filesystem checks are done at reboot time. The root filesystem should be specified with a fs_passno of 1, and other filesystems should have a fs_passno of 2. Filesystems within a drive will be checked sequentially, but filesystems on different drives will be checked at the same time to utilize parallelism available in the hardware. If the sixth field is not present or zero, a value of zero is returned and fsck will assume that the filesystem does not need to be checked.

/dev/hdaX / reiserfs defaults 0 1
/dev/hdaY /home resierfs defaults 0 2
/dev/hdaZ /var resierfs defaults 0 2

Adjusting your /etc/fstab to something similar will ensure that your file system is checked on boot. In terms of start-up time, it doesn't really take that much longer with ReiserFS (Depending on the size of your partition) and it provides you with "piece-of-mind".

elasticdog · 2006-10-23 18:04:48

con wrote:

I'm running reiserfs on all partitions and I edited fstab...

Reiserfs automatically does a file system check upon every mounting, so you don't have to explicitly tell it to in your fstab file...if you do, it will actually get checked twice. I know this has been brought up before on a couple of the bootchart threads if you want to search around for more info.

con · 2006-10-29 19:42:40

Thanks for your reply elasticdog (and everyone else too) I wasnt aware of that. Thanks again

Arch Linux

#1 2006-10-23 11:08:50

Not checking filesystems at startup by default

#2 2006-10-23 13:04:39

Re: Not checking filesystems at startup by default

#3 2006-10-23 13:11:34

Re: Not checking filesystems at startup by default

#4 2006-10-23 13:44:07

Re: Not checking filesystems at startup by default

#5 2006-10-23 18:04:48

Re: Not checking filesystems at startup by default

#6 2006-10-29 19:42:40

Re: Not checking filesystems at startup by default

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