Is FSCK order value required on CENTOS 8 RHEL 8 Versions

rhadmn · 11-09-2023, 06:27 AM

Hi Team,

Greetings for the day.

Kind request to please shed some light on the requirement of the FSCK order in the /etc/fstab entries on RHEL/CENTOS 8 Servers/VMs.

I mean is there any issue in Skipping it by mentioning the value '0'.

Regards.

jmgibson1981 · 11-09-2023, 07:28 AM

I'm hardly an expert on fstab stuff, or the boot process in general. But fsck checks and repairs the filesystem. Why do you want to disable it? It takes virtually no time at all?

I think there is no harm in leaving it zero but eventually something will go sideways and you will wish you had it turned on I'd think anyway. Back in the day every distro I tried had the fstab all set to 0 on the fsck. Now they all have it set to 1 on root and 2 on the rest of the local drives. I'm sure it's not on by accident.

TB0ne · 11-09-2023, 08:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhadmn

Hi Team,
Greetings for the day.

Kind request to please shed some light on the requirement of the FSCK order in the /etc/fstab entries on RHEL/CENTOS 8 Servers/VMs. I mean is there any issue in Skipping it by mentioning the value '0'.

We aren't on your 'team'; we are volunteers here.

And as someone with Red Hat 'certifications', and *FOURTEEN YEARS* experience, you're honestly asking us about fstab and fsck??? If you know what fsck is and what it does, you know what the issues would be if you skipped it, especially on a damaged filesystem. And you don't tell us what the 'any issue' is with the system, why you're asking, or what kind of file systems are involved with the fsck in question.

MadeInGermany · 11-10-2023, 05:03 AM

Without occasionally checking (and eventually fixing) file systems, corruptions will grow over time, and finally can lead to a "fubar" state.
There is normally no overhead with fsck. At a normal system shutdown a clean flag is set. At boot, fsck first checks the clean flag and skips all further actions.

MadeInGermany · 12-15-2023, 06:59 AM

If your filesystem type is ext3/ext4 then it might run a fsck after some time.
You can tune it with e.g.

Code:

tune2fs -c 100 -i 6m /dev/xxxx

Meaning: run a fsck after 100 mounts (e.g. system bootups) or after 6 months, whichever comes first. A value -1 disables the respective limit.
List the current values:

Code:

tune2fs -l /dev/xxxx | grep -i -e "mount.count" -e "interval"

jayjwa · 12-15-2023, 08:25 AM

See man fstab, "sixth field". Since you want the root system first due to its importance, it's set to 1. Others are 2. Stuff you don't want fsck'd are zero. Modern filesystems that journal don't have the long fsck time that something like ext2 had, even after a crash.