FSCK

Section: Maintenance Commands (8)
Updated: May 1993
Index Return to Main Contents
 

NAME

fsck - check and repair a Linux file system  

SYNOPSIS

fsck [ -A ] [ -V ] [ -t fstype ] [ fs-options ] filesys  

DESCRIPTION

fsck is used to check and optionally repair a Linux file system. filesys is either the device name (e.g. /dev/hda1, /dev/sdb2) or the mount point (e.g. /, /usr, /home) for the file system.

The exit code returned by fsck is the sum of the following conditions:
0 - No errors
1 - File system errors corrected
2 - File system errors corrected, system should
  be rebooted if file system was mounted
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 /etc/fs first, then in /etc and finally in the directories listed in the PATH environment variable. Please see the file system-specific checker manual pages for further details.  

OPTIONS

-A
Walk through the /etc/fstab file and try to check all file systems in one run. This option is typically used from the /etc/rc system initalization file, instead of multiple commands for checking a single file system. Note, that with this option, you cannot give the filesys argument as well.
-V
Produce verbose output, including all file system-specific commands that are executed. Specifying this option more than once inhibits execution of any file system-specific commands. This is really only useful for testing.
-t fstype
Specifies the type of file system to be checked. If not specified, the type is deduced by searching for filesys in /etc/fstab and using the corresponding entry. If the type can not be deduced, the default file system type (currently minix) is used.
fs-options
File system-specific options to be passed to the real file system checker. 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).
-l
List all the file names in the file system.
-r
Interactively repair the file system (ask for confirmations).
-s
List the super block before checking the file system.
-v
Produce verbose output.
 

BUGS

All generic options must precede and not be combined with file system-specific options. Some file system-specific programs do not support the -v (verbose) option, nor return meaningful exit codes.  

AUTHORS

David Engel (david@ods.com)
Fred N. van Kempen (waltje@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org)
The manual page was shamelessly adapted from Remy Card's version for the ext2 file system.  

SEE ALSO

mkfs(8), fsck.minix(8), fsck.ext(8), fsck.ext2(8), fsck.xiafs(8).


 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
OPTIONS
BUGS
AUTHORS
SEE ALSO

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 11:30:35 GMT, December 08, 2024