FSCK(8) 						       System Administration							   FSCK(8)

NAME

       fsck.minix - check consistency of Minix filesystem

SYNOPSIS

       fsck.minix [-larvsmf] device

DESCRIPTION

       fsck.minix  performs  a	consistency  check for the Linux MINIX filesystem.  The current version supports the 14 character and 30 character
       filename options.

       The program assumes the filesystem is quiescent.  fsck.minix should not be used on a mounted device unless you can be sure nobody is  writ-
       ing to it (and remember that the kernel can write to it when it searches for files).

       The device name will usually have the following form:
	      /dev/hda[1-63] (IDE disk 1)
	      /dev/hdb[1-63] (IDE disk 2)
	      /dev/sda[1-15] (SCSI disk 1)
	      /dev/sdb[1-15] (SCSI disk 2)

       If  the	filesystem  was changed (i.e., repaired), then fsck.minix will print "FILE SYSTEM HAS CHANGED" and will sync(2) three times before
       exiting.  Since Linux does not currently have raw devices, there is no need to reboot at this time.

WARNING

       fsck.minix should not be used on a mounted filesystem.  Using fsck.minix on a mounted filesystem is very dangerous, due to the  possibility
       that  deleted  files are still in use, and can seriously damage a perfectly good filesystem!  If you absolutely have to run fsck.minix on a
       mounted filesystem (i.e., the root filesystem), make sure nothing is writing to the disk, and that no files are "zombies" waiting for dele-
       tion.

OPTIONS

       -l     List all filenames.

       -r     Perform interactive repairs.

       -a     Perform  automatic  repairs.   (This option implies -r and serves to answer all of the questions asked with the default.)  Note that
	      this can be extremely dangerous in the case of extensive filesystem damage.

       -v     Be verbose.

       -s     Output super-block information.

       -m     Activate MINIX-like "mode not cleared" warnings.

       -f     Force a filesystem check even if the filesystem was marked as valid (this marking is done by  the  kernel  when  the  filesystem	is
	      unmounted).

SEE ALSO

       fsck(8), fsck.ext2(8), mkfs(8), mkfs.minix(8), mkfs.ext2(8), reboot(8)

DIAGNOSTICS

       There are numerous diagnostic messages.	The ones mentioned here are the most commonly seen in normal usage.

       If  the	device	does  not exist, fsck.minix will print "unable to read super block".  If the device exists, but is not a MINIX filesystem,
       fsck.minix will print "bad magic number in super-block".

EXIT CODES

       The exit code returned by fsck.minix is the sum of the following:

       0      No errors

       3      Filesystem errors corrected, system should be rebooted if filesystem was mounted

       4      Filesystem errors left uncorrected

       7      Combination of exit codes 3 and 4

       8      Operational error

       16     Usage or syntax error

       In point of fact, only 0, 3, 4, 7, 8, and 16 can ever be returned.

AUTHOR

       Linus Torvalds (torvalds@cs.helsinki.fi)
       Error code values by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
       Added support for filesystem valid flag: Dr. Wettstein (greg%wind.uucp@plains.nodak.edu)
       Check to prevent fsck of mounted filesystem added by Daniel Quinlan (quinlan@yggdrasil.com)
       Minix v2 fs support by Andreas Schwab (schwab@issan.informatik.uni-dortmund.de), updated by Nicolai Langfeldt (janl@math.uio.no)
       Portability patch by Russell King (rmk@ecs.soton.ac.uk).

AVAILABILITY

       The fsck.minix command is part of the util-linux package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.

util-linux							     July 1996								   FSCK(8)