[CentOS] Automatic disk check

Thu Apr 7 13:12:57 UTC 2005
Chris Mauritz <chrism at imntv.com>

Matt Hyclak wrote:

>On Thu, Apr 07, 2005 at 07:30:20AM -0500, Mike Kercher enlightened us:
>  
>
>>If a problem is encountered during the fsck, will the system automagically
>>fix it?
>>
>>    
>>
>
>By default, it doesn't appear to. However, it does get additional options
>from the /fsckoptions file, so you could give it the -p there to
>automatically fix problems. That can be dangerous, though...I've had entire
>filesystems end up in lost+found doing that :-)
>
>  
>


While that's true (you can lose data), most people when confronted with 
the "should I correct this?" dialog during fsck simply hit "yes" 
anyway.  I've been using Linux since the early 90's and unix since the 
mid-80's and still find the output of fsck to be somewhat cryptic. 

If you want the machine to come up in an automated fashion (a headless 
system) then I don't really see any other way of accomplishing this.  
Personally, when I have a machine that's wedged or doesn't survive a 
reboot, I consider that a cue to visit (or send someone else to visit) 
the datacenter to find out why.  Relying on some of the "technicians" 
I've seen in various datacenters in NYC/LDN/SFO/HK to troubleshoot the 
system just isn't an option.  Troubleshooting generally means repeatedly 
leaning on the power button until it either recovers by itself or 
completely melts down.  8-)

Cheers,

C