[CentOS] How to stagger fsck executions

Tue Apr 21 19:13:12 UTC 2015
Hugh E Cruickshank <hugh at forsoft.com>

From: Gordon Messmer Sent: April 21, 2015 10:30
> 
> On 04/21/2015 09:40 AM, Hugh E Cruickshank wrote:
> > I accept that fscks are required on a periodic basis and I 
> am willing
> > to reboot more often to achieve these but I would like to minimize
> > downtime (during the reboot) where possible.
> 
> Why do you accept that?

Every article I have read on the subject has recommended this a good
practice.

> The default behavior for filesystems set up by Red Hat tools
> (anaconda) is not to fsck.  Not by mount count, nor by 
> time.  The default behavior for e2fsprogs was changed to disable 
> periodic fsck in Feb 2011.  CentOS 6 includes a version of e2fsprogs 
> from before that change, but the filesystem is considered 
> very stable, 
> and the periodic fsck is not generally considered necessary.

I have confirmed that filesystems setup by anaconda on both CentOS 6
and RHEL 6 have both boot count and interval disabled however they
are not disabled for any manually created filesystems (they are set
to 24 and 6 months, respectively).

I find it interesting that as late as 2014 Red Hat is recommending:

. If automatic filesystem checks are inconvenient, then it is
  recommended to disable the automated filesystem check as discussed
  in the following article:

  How to turn off forced/automatic fsck in Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

. Once disabled, it is recommended to schedule regular "human
  controlled/monitored" filsystem checks, when it is convenient to
  do so. These checks should not be ignored, or scheduled too far
  apart.

This is from https://access.redhat.com/solutions/70531

Regards, Hugh

-- 
Hugh E Cruickshank, Forward Software, www.forward-software.com