NAME
fsck.gfs2 - Offline GFS2 file system checker
SYNOPSIS
fsck.gfs2 [OPTION]... DEVICE
WARNING
All GFS2 nodes must have the GFS2 filesystem unmounted before running
fsck.gfs2. Failure to unmount all nodes may result in filesystem
corruption.
DESCRIPTION
fsck.gfs2 will check that the GFS2 file system on a device is
structurally valid. It should not be run on a mounted file system. If
file system corruption is detected, it will attempt to repair the file
system. There is a limit to what fsck.gfs2 can do. If important file
system structures are destroyed, such that the checker cannot determine
what the repairs should be, reparations could fail.
GFS2 is a journaled file system, and as such should be able to repair
damage to the file system on its own. However, faulty hardware has the
ability to write incomplete blocks to a file system thereby causing
corruption that GFS2 cannot fix. The first step to ensuring a healthy
file system is the selection of reliable hardware (i.e. storage systems
that will write complete blocks - even in the event of power failure).
Note: Most file system checkers will not check the file system if it is
"clean" (i.e. unmounted since the last use). The fsck.gfs program
behaves differently because the storage may be shared among several
nodes in a cluster, and therefore problems may have been introduced on
a different computer. Therefore, fsck.gfs2 will always check the file
system unless the -p (preen) option is used, in which case it follows
special rules (see below).
OPTIONS
-a Same as the -p (preen) option.
-f Force checking even if the file system seems clean.
-h Help.
This prints out the proper command line usage syntax.
-q Quiet.
-n No to all questions.
By specifying this option, fsck.gfs2 will only show the changes
that would be made, but not make any changes to the filesystem.
-p Preen (same as -a: automatically repair the file system if it is
dirty, and safe to do so, otherwise exit.)
Note: If the file system has locking protocol lock_nolock, the
file system is considered a non-shared storage device and the
fsck is deemed safe. However, fsck.gfs2 does not know whether
it was called automatically from the init process, due to
options in the /etc/fstab file. Therefore, if the locking
protocol is lock_dlm and -a or -p was specified, fsck.gfs2
cannot determine whether the disk is mounted by other nodes in
the cluster. Therefore, the fsck is deemed to be unsafe and a
warning is given if any damage or dirty journals are found. In
that case, the file system should be unmounted from all nodes in
the cluster and fsck.gfs2 should be run manually without the -a
or -p options.
-V Version.
Print out the program version information.
-v Verbose operation.
Print more information while running.
-y Yes to all questions.
By specifying this option, fsck.gfs2 will not prompt before
making changes.
fsck.gfs2(8)