GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
Desktop Survival Project Home Preface Advocacy History Distributions Installing GNU/Linux Basic Survival Wajig Applications AI, Machine Learning, Data Science Android - GNU/Linux Devices Audio Backup Booting CD Chinese ChRoot Clock Command Line Databases DIA Directories Disks EcoSysL Emacs Email Evolution Files File Systems Firewalls Floppy Disks FreedomBox Glade GNOME Graphics, Images, Photos Hardware Initialisations on Booting Installation Examples Internet IOT Java KDE Kernels Keyboard Konqueror KVM Switch LATEX Log System Login Magellan MATE Mathematics Memory Modems Mounting Devices MS/Windows Music MySQL Nautilus Networks Nextcloud Network File System NFS NT File System Oracle Packages Partitions Passwords PDF Power Management PPP Presentations Printing Python R Remote Desktops Rsync Samba Scanning Science Screens Security Spreadsheet SSH Swap Teradata Data Warehouse Themes TV Unity USB Version Control Video Virtualization Voice over IP WebCam WordPress Web Sites Word Processing and Printing X XML Troubleshooting Index

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE UPDATED SURVIVAL GUIDE

Check for Errors

On reboot a check will be made to determine whether a disk needs to be checked for errors. This will usually be after every fixed number of reboots or after a fixed amount of time. The fsck is run and can take some time.

On login we might see a message like:

*** /dev/sdc1 will be checked for errors at next reboot ***

On belinos () I have been seeing this message for some time [120819] and yet the disk is not checked on a reboot.

Note that a check can be triggered on the root partition if there is a file forcefsck in the root of the partition. For other partitions, we can unmount the partition, do fsck, then remount it.

The file /var/lib/update-notifier/fsck-at-reboot contains the message re file systems requiring reboots. It is updated by /usr/lib/update-notifier/update-motd-fsck-at-reboot.

Here's an example of what I did manually:

gjw@belinos:~$ sudo dumpe2fs -h /dev/sdc1 | grep -i mount
dumpe2fs 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
Last mounted on:          <not available>
Default mount options:    (none)
Last mount time:          Sun Aug 19 14:53:23 2012
Mount count:              86
Maximum mount count:      36
gjw@belinos:~$ sudo umount /dev/sdc1
gjw@belinos:~$ sudo fsck -y -c -f /dev/sdc1
fsck from util-linux 2.20.1
e2fsck 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
Checking for bad blocks (read-only test):   
11.90% done, 9:13 elapsed. (0/0/0 errors)
/dev/sdc1: Updating bad block inode.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information

/dev/sdc1: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
/dev/sdc1: 131/18317312 files (0.0% non-contiguous), 66340569/73262416 blocks
gjw@belinos:~$ sudo mount /dev/sdc1
gjw@belinos:~$ sudo dumpe2fs -h /dev/sdc1 | grep -i mount
dumpe2fs 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
Last mounted on:          <not available>
Default mount options:    (none)
Last mount time:          Sun Aug 19 17:02:47 2012
Mount count:              1
Maximum mount count:      36
gjw@belinos:~$ sudo /usr/lib/update-notifier/update-motd-fsck-at-reboot