FSCK(8)

NAME
       fsck - check and repair a Linux file system

SYNOPSIS
       fsck  [  -AVRTNP  ]  [  -s  ] [ -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.   If this fsck has several
       filesystems on different physical disk  drives  to  check,
       this  fsck will try to run them in parallel.  This reduces
       the total amount  time  it  takes  to  check  all  of  the
       filesystems, since fsck takes advantage of the parallelism
       of multiple disk spindles.

       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 direc-
       tories  listed  in  the PATH environment variable.  Please
       see the file system-specific checker manual pages for fur-
       ther details.

OPTIONS
       -A     Walk  through  the /etc/fstab file and try to check
              all file systems in one run.  This option is  typi-
              cally  used  from  the /etc/rc system initalization
              file, instead of multiple commands for  checking  a
              single file system.

       -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.

       -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).

       -s     Serialize fsck operations.  This is a good idea  if
              you checking multiple filesystems in 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.)

       -V     Produce  verbose output, including all file system-
              specific commands that are executed.

       -t fstype
              Specifies the type of file system  to  be  checked.
              When  the  -A  flag  is specified, only filesystems
              that match fstype are checked.  If fstype  is  pre-
              fixed  with no only filesystems whose filesystem do
              not match fstype are checked.
              Normally, the filesystem type is deduced by search-
              ing  for  filesys  in the /etc/fstab file and using
              the corresponding entry.  If the type  can  not  be
              deduced, fsck will use the type specified by the -t
              option if it specifies a  unique  filesystem  type.
              If this type is not available, the the default file
              system type (currently ext2) is used.

       fs-options
              Any options which are not understood  by  fsck,  or
              which follow the -- option are treated as file sys-
              tem-specific options to be passed to the file  sys-
              tem-specific checker.

       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 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  program,
       which  was  in  turn  shamelessly adapted from Remy Card's
       version for the ext2 file system.

FILES
       /etc/fstab.

SEE ALSO
       fstab(5) mkfs(8) fsck.minix(8) fsck.ext2(8) or 
       e2fsck(8) fsck.xiafs(8).