E2FSCK(8) System Manager's Manual E2FSCK(8)
NAME
e2fsck - check a Linux ext2/ext3/ext4 file system
SYNOPSIS
e2fsck [ -pacnyrdfkvtDFV ] [ -b superblock ] [ -B blocksize ] [ -l|-L bad_blocks_file ] [ -C fd ] [ -j external-journal ] [ -E
extended_options ] [ -z undo_file ] device
DESCRIPTION
e2fsck is used to check the ext2/ext3/ext4 family of file systems. For ext3 and ext4 filesystems that use a journal, if the system has
been shut down uncleanly without any errors, normally, after replaying the committed transactions in the journal, the file system should
be marked as clean. Hence, for filesystems that use journalling, e2fsck will normally replay the journal and exit, unless its superblock
indicates that further checking is required.
device is a block device (e.g., /dev/sdc1) or file containing the file system.
Note that in general it is not safe to run e2fsck on mounted filesystems. The only exception is if the -n option is specified, and -c, -l,
or -L options are not specified. However, even if it is safe to do so, the results printed by e2fsck are not valid if the filesystem is
mounted. If e2fsck asks whether or not you should check a filesystem which is mounted, the only correct answer is ``no''. Only experts
who really know what they are doing should consider answering this question in any other way.
If e2fsck is run in interactive mode (meaning that none of -y, -n, or -p are specified), the program will ask the user to fix each problem
found in the filesystem. A response of 'y' will fix the error; 'n' will leave the error unfixed; and 'a' will fix the problem and all sub-
sequent problems; pressing Enter will proceed with the default response, which is printed before the question mark. Pressing Control-C
terminates e2fsck immediately.
OPTIONS
-a This option does the same thing as the -p option. It is provided for backwards compatibility only; it is suggested that people use
-p option whenever possible.
-b superblock
Instead of using the normal superblock, use an alternative superblock specified by superblock. This option is normally used when
the primary superblock has been corrupted. The location of backup superblocks is dependent on the filesystem's blocksize, the num-
ber of blocks per group, and features such as sparse_super.
Additional backup superblocks can be determined by using the mke2fs program using the -n option to print out where the superblocks
exist, supposing mke2fs is supplied with arguments that are consistent with the filesystem's layout (e.g. blocksize, blocks per
group, sparse_super, etc.).
If an alternative superblock is specified and the filesystem is not opened read-only, e2fsck will make sure that the primary
superblock is updated appropriately upon completion of the filesystem check.
-B blocksize
Normally, e2fsck will search for the superblock at various different block sizes in an attempt to find the appropriate block size.
This search can be fooled in some cases. This option forces e2fsck to only try locating the superblock at a particular blocksize.
If the superblock is not found, e2fsck will terminate with a fatal error.
-c This option causes e2fsck to use badblocks(8) program to do a read-only scan of the device in order to find any bad blocks. If any
bad blocks are found, they are added to the bad block inode to prevent them from being allocated to a file or directory. If this
option is specified twice, then the bad block scan will be done using a non-destructive read-write test.
-C fd This option causes e2fsck to write completion information to the specified file descriptor so that the progress of the filesystem
check can be monitored. This option is typically used by programs which are running e2fsck. If the file descriptor number is nega-
tive, then absolute value of the file descriptor will be used, and the progress information will be suppressed initially. It can
later be enabled by sending the e2fsck process a SIGUSR1 signal. If the file descriptor specified is 0, e2fsck will print a comple-
tion bar as it goes about its business. This requires that e2fsck is running on a video console or terminal.
-d Print debugging output (useless unless you are debugging e2fsck).
-D Optimize directories in filesystem. This option causes e2fsck to try to optimize all directories, either by reindexing them if the
filesystem supports directory indexing, or by sorting and compressing directories for smaller directories, or for filesystems using
traditional linear directories.
Even without the -D option, e2fsck may sometimes optimize a few directories --- for example, if directory indexing is enabled and a
directory is not indexed and would benefit from being indexed, or if the index structures are corrupted and need to be rebuilt. The
-D option forces all directories in the filesystem to be optimized. This can sometimes make them a little smaller and slightly
faster to search, but in practice, you should rarely need to use this option.
The -D option will detect directory entries with duplicate names in a single directory, which e2fsck normally does not enforce for
performance reasons.
-E extended_options
Set e2fsck extended options. Extended options are comma separated, and may take an argument using the equals ('=') sign. The fol-
lowing options are supported:
ea_ver=extended_attribute_version
Set the version of the extended attribute blocks which e2fsck will require while checking the filesystem. The version
number may be 1 or 2. The default extended attribute version format is 2.
journal_only
Only replay the journal if required, but do not perform any further checks or repairs.
fragcheck
During pass 1, print a detailed report of any discontiguous blocks for files in the filesystem.
discard
Attempt to discard free blocks and unused inode blocks after the full filesystem check (discarding blocks is useful on
solid state devices and sparse / thin-provisioned storage). Note that discard is done in pass 5 AFTER the filesystem has
been fully checked and only if it does not contain recognizable errors. However there might be cases where e2fsck does
not fully recognize a problem and hence in this case this option may prevent you from further manual data recovery.
nodiscard
Do not attempt to discard free blocks and unused inode blocks. This option is exactly the opposite of discard option.
This is set as default.
no_optimize_extents
Do not offer to optimize the extent tree by eliminating unnecessary width or depth. This can also be enabled in the
options section of /etc/e2fsck.conf.
optimize_extents
Offer to optimize the extent tree by eliminating unnecessary width or depth. This is the default unless otherwise spec-
ified in /etc/e2fsck.conf.
inode_count_fullmap
Trade off using memory for speed when checking a file system with a large number of hard-linked files. The amount of
memory required is proportional to the number of inodes in the file system. For large file systems, this can be giga-
bytes of memory. (For example, a 40TB file system with 2.8 billion inodes will consume an additional 5.7 GB memory if
this optimization is enabled.) This optimization can also be enabled in the options section of /etc/e2fsck.conf.
no_inode_count_fullmap
Disable the inode_count_fullmap optimization. This is the default unless otherwise specified in /etc/e2fsck.conf.
readahead_kb
Use this many KiB of memory to pre-fetch metadata in the hopes of reducing e2fsck runtime. By default, this is set to
the size of two block groups' inode tables (typically 4MiB on a regular ext4 filesystem); if this amount is more than
1/50th of total physical memory, readahead is disabled. Set this to zero to disable readahead entirely.
bmap2extent
Convert block-mapped files to extent-mapped files.
fixes_only
Only fix damaged metadata; do not optimize htree directories or compress extent trees. This option is incompatible with
the -D and -E bmap2extent options.
-f Force checking even if the file system seems clean.
-F Flush the filesystem device's buffer caches before beginning. Only really useful for doing e2fsck time trials.
-j external-journal
Set the pathname where the external-journal for this filesystem can be found.
-k When combined with the -c option, any existing bad blocks in the bad blocks list are preserved, and any new bad blocks found by run-
ning badblocks(8) will be added to the existing bad blocks list.
-l filename
Add the block numbers listed in the file specified by filename to the list of bad blocks. The format of this file is the same as
the one generated by the badblocks(8) program. Note that the block numbers are based on the blocksize of the filesystem. Hence,
badblocks(8) must be given the blocksize of the filesystem in order to obtain correct results. As a result, it is much simpler and
safer to use the -c option to e2fsck, since it will assure that the correct parameters are passed to the badblocks program.
-L filename
Set the bad blocks list to be the list of blocks specified by filename. (This option is the same as the -l option, except the bad
blocks list is cleared before the blocks listed in the file are added to the bad blocks list.)
-n Open the filesystem read-only, and assume an answer of `no' to all questions. Allows e2fsck to be used non-interactively. This
option may not be specified at the same time as the -p or -y options.
-p Automatically repair ("preen") the file system. This option will cause e2fsck to automatically fix any filesystem problems that can
be safely fixed without human intervention. If e2fsck discovers a problem which may require the system administrator to take addi-
tional corrective action, e2fsck will print a description of the problem and then exit with the value 4 logically or'ed into the
exit code. (See the EXIT CODE section.) This option is normally used by the system's boot scripts. It may not be specified at the
same time as the -n or -y options.
-r This option does nothing at all; it is provided only for backwards compatibility.
-t Print timing statistics for e2fsck. If this option is used twice, additional timing statistics are printed on a pass by pass basis.
-v Verbose mode.
-V Print version information and exit.
-y Assume an answer of `yes' to all questions; allows e2fsck to be used non-interactively. This option may not be specified at the
same time as the -n or -p options.
-z undo_file
Before overwriting a file system block, write the old contents of the block to an undo file. This undo file can be used with
e2undo(8) to restore the old contents of the file system should something go wrong. If the empty string is passed as the undo_file
argument, the undo file will be written to a file named e2fsck-device.e2undo in the directory specified via the E2FSPROGS_UNDO_DIR
environment variable.
WARNING: The undo file cannot be used to recover from a power or system crash.
EXIT CODE
The exit code returned by e2fsck is the sum of the following conditions:
0 - No errors
1 - File system errors corrected
2 - File system errors corrected, system should
be rebooted
4 - File system errors left uncorrected
8 - Operational error
16 - Usage or syntax error
32 - E2fsck canceled by user request
128 - Shared library error
SIGNALS
The following signals have the following effect when sent to e2fsck.
SIGUSR1
This signal causes e2fsck to start displaying a completion bar or emitting progress information. (See discussion of the -C option.)
SIGUSR2
This signal causes e2fsck to stop displaying a completion bar or emitting progress information.
REPORTING BUGS
Almost any piece of software will have bugs. If you manage to find a filesystem which causes e2fsck to crash, or which e2fsck is unable to
repair, please report it to the author.
Please include as much information as possible in your bug report. Ideally, include a complete transcript of the e2fsck run, so I can see
exactly what error messages are displayed. (Make sure the messages printed by e2fsck are in English; if your system has been configured so
that e2fsck's messages have been translated into another language, please set the the LC_ALL environment variable to C so that the tran-
script of e2fsck's output will be useful to me.) If you have a writable filesystem where the transcript can be stored, the script(1) pro-
gram is a handy way to save the output of e2fsck to a file.
It is also useful to send the output of dumpe2fs(8). If a specific inode or inodes seems to be giving e2fsck trouble, try running the
debugfs(8) command and send the output of the stat(1u) command run on the relevant inode(s). If the inode is a directory, the debugfs dump
command will allow you to extract the contents of the directory inode, which can sent to me after being first run through uuencode(1). The
most useful data you can send to help reproduce the bug is a compressed raw image dump of the filesystem, generated using e2image(8). See
the e2image(8) man page for more details.
Always include the full version string which e2fsck displays when it is run, so I know which version you are running.
ENVIRONMENT
E2FSCK_CONFIG
Determines the location of the configuration file (see e2fsck.conf(5)).
AUTHOR
This version of e2fsck was written by Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>.
SEE ALSO
e2fsck.conf(5), badblocks(8), dumpe2fs(8), debugfs(8), e2image(8), mke2fs(8), tune2fs(8)
E2fsprogs version 1.44.1 March 2018 E2FSCK(8)