From: hooft@fys.ruu.nl (Rob Hooft) Subject: Re: Is (e2)fsck dangerous?? Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1993 10:07:40 GMT
In <1993Mar31.194651.845@amscons.com> bob@amscons.com (Bob Amstadt) writes:
>seth@gradient.cis.upenn.edu (Zippy) writes:
>: I got a report yesterday that running (e2)fsck on a mounted fs was potentially
>: dangerous. Does this apply to the -r option only, or to any instance of
>: (e2)fsck? It seemed odd because this is the (only?) way to check a fs,
>: and since root can't be unmounted, we run into a problem here. Can anyone
>: verify this?
>In general, never run any file system checker on a mounted filesystem.
Correct. I just wanted to note that this problem is being worked on.
Currently the best way is to boot using a root-floppy to perform any
corrections. Running fsck without performing corrections is quite safe
from a mounted system. However, if the system is busy while the check is
performed, you might get a false alert.
The new approach will be to mount the root filesystem readonly, and only
remount it read-write if fsck does not complain.
Rob.
-- Rob W.W. Hooft, Department of crystal and structural chemistry Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research, University of Utrecht The Netherlands ===== hooft@chem.ruu.nl (hooft@hutruu54.bitnet) ====Use a Real Operating System on your 386: Linux is FREE!====