From: sct@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Stephen Tweedie) Subject: Re: EXT2FS FAQ (Was Re: A ton of questions) Date: 5 Apr 1993 17:05:17 GMT
In article <marcf.733864106@yorku.ca>, marcf@nexus.yorku.ca (Marc G Fournier) writes:
> What is the best way to do an (e2)fsck on the root file
> system? my understanding is that the best way to do it on any file
> system is unmounted, but of course you can't unmount the root file
> system :)
You can safely run e2fsck in readonly, non-repairing mode (without the
-a or -r flag) on a mounted root filesystem, as long as there are no
other applications active at the same time. It is even safe if there
ARE other programs modifying the filesystem - but in this case e2fsck
will get confused and will probably report errors even if there are
none.
If e2fsck reports errors, then either reboot from a floppy and fix the
e2fs partition, or run e2fsck from the root itself and hard-reset once
it is finished.
It IS safe to reboot immediately after e2fscking a mounted root, as
long as you are VERY careful that there is nothing else writing to the
root filesystem while the check is in progress. The e2fsck program
will ensure that everything necessary is properly sync()ed to disk
before it exits.
I have written a set of patches to allow the root filesystem to be
mounted in readonly mode; hopefully there will at some point be a
startup system which will fsck the root while it is readonly, and then
remount the root writeably if the check succeeds. In the long term
this will be the easiest way to safely check root partitions.
>>Q: I have tried to create an ext 2 file system with mke2fs and it dies with
>> 'Out of memory'. What is the problem ?
> I have 0.2c installed (is there one newer?)
Yes, 0.2c+ has been released; 0.2d is under testing and should be
released soon.
> I've almost converted all my file system sto the ext2 fs...
> looking forward to seeing more utilities for it, like a defragger
> :))
Ext2fs support won't be there in the next release (defrag-0.4 should
be out mid-week - it's finished and just awaits final testing), but it
is on the wishlist. :-)
Cheers,
Stephen Tweedie.