hmm, on Fri, Oct 02, 2009 at 07:31:39PM +0200, Otto Moerbeek said that > > fsck -y > > > > after a power or other type of failure, > > in cases the automatic file system check fails? > > If that was a wisething to do, we would have already done so. In other > words, it is not wise. It's foolish.
as usually, i absolutely agree with you Otto. however. please all the people in the room raise their hands who have the faintest idea about what 95% of the questions that fsck is going to ask them on a seriously borked fs mean. my hat goes off to them. here's the thing: even though every single diagnostic message fsck may produce is documented in /usr/share/doc/smm/03.fsck_ffs i dont see how these questions help at all. what i mean is, there is nothing to compare the diagnostic data to anyway, so what is the answer going to be based on? so far i have always only took the leap of faith and pressed yes or always.. what else is there to do? a couple of months ago, after a certain incident on my notebook i was presented with a borked suberblock and after i have figured out that the backup superblock were usable, i just crossed my fingers and after a dry run i started fsck. i got some 7700 'UNKNOWN FILE TYPE's, an unallocated root inode, bad magic numbers for CGs and fsck messages i have never had the luck meeting with before... (should read 03.fsck_ffs one of these days probably -- but even then, i would just say yes on every question) unfortunately i dont have a transcript of that fsck session, i do however have a "screenshot" of the last phase: ** Phase 5 - Check Cyl groups CG 0: BAD MAGIC NUMBER FREE BLK COUNT(S) WRONG IN SUPERBLK SALVAGE? yes SUMMARY INFORMATION BAD SALVAGE? yes BLK(S) MISSING IN BIT MAPS SALVAGE? yes 118774 files, 4966785 used, 2542705 free (17073 frags, 315704 blocks, 0.2% fragmentation) UPDATE STANDARD SUPERBLOCK? yes MARK FILE SYSTEM CLEAN? yes ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED ***** (for the curious: all my files survived under lost+found. i was as happy as it can be) if fsck thinks there is a problem, there is nothing left but to press y anyway. although i'd very much like to read stories of other admins doing otherwise. -f -- atheism is a non-prophet organization.
