2 .\" Copyright 2006 by Theodore Ts'o. All Rights Reserved.
3 .\" This file may be copied under the terms of the GNU Public License.
5 .TH e2fsck.conf 5 "@E2FSPROGS_MONTH@ @E2FSPROGS_YEAR@" "E2fsprogs version @E2FSPROGS_VERSION@"
7 e2fsck.conf \- Configuration file for e2fsck
10 is the configuration file for
12 It controls the default behavior of
14 while it is checking ext2, ext3, or ext4 filesystems.
18 file uses an INI-style format. Stanzas, or top-level sections, are
19 delimited by square braces: [ ]. Within each section, each line
20 defines a relation, which assigns tags to values, or to a subsection,
21 which contains further relations or subsections.
22 .\" Tags can be assigned multiple values
23 An example of the INI-style format used by this configuration file
38 subtag1 = subtag_value_a
40 subtag1 = subtag_value_b
42 subtag2 = subtag_value_c
52 Comments are delimited by a semicolon (';') or a hash ('#') character
53 at the beginning of the comment, and are terminated by the end of
56 Tags and values must be quoted using double quotes if they contain
57 spaces. Within a quoted string, the standard backslash interpretations
58 apply: "\en" (for the newline character),
59 "\et" (for the tab character), "\eb" (for the backspace character),
60 and "\e\e" (for the backslash character).
62 The following stanzas are used in the
64 file. They will be described in more detail in future sections of this
68 This stanza contains general configuration parameters for
73 This stanza allows the administrator to reconfigure how e2fsck handles
74 various filesystem inconsistencies.
77 This stanza controls when e2fsck will attempt to use scratch files to
78 reduce the need for memory.
79 .SH THE [options] STANZA
80 The following relations are defined in the
85 If this relation is set to a boolean value of true, then if the user
86 interrupts e2fsck using ^C, and the filesystem is not explicitly flagged
87 as containing errors, e2fsck will exit with an exit status of 0 instead
88 of 32. This setting defaults to false.
91 Unfortunately, due to Windows' unfortunate design decision
92 to configure the hardware clock to tick localtime, instead
93 of the more proper and less error-prone UTC time, many
94 users end up in the situation where the system clock is
95 incorrectly set at the time when e2fsck is run.
97 Historically this was usually due to some distributions
98 having buggy init scripts and/or installers that didn't
99 correctly detect this case and take appropriate
100 countermeasures. Unfortunately, this is occasionally
101 true even today, usually due to a
102 buggy or misconfigured virtualization manager or the
103 installer not having access to a network time server
104 during the installation process. So by default, we allow
105 the superblock times to be fudged by up to 24 hours.
106 This can be disabled by setting
109 boolean value of false. This setting defaults to true.
111 .I broken_system_clock
114 program has some heuristics that assume that the system clock is
115 correct. In addition, many system programs make similar assumptions.
116 For example, the UUID library depends on time not going backwards in
117 order for it to be able to make its guarantees about issuing universally
118 unique ID's. Systems with broken system clocks, are well, broken.
119 However, broken system clocks, particularly in embedded systems, do
120 exist. E2fsck will attempt to use heuristics to determine if the time
121 can not be trusted; and to skip time-based checks if this is true. If
122 this boolean is set to true, then e2fsck will always assume that the
123 system clock can not be trusted.
125 .I buggy_init_scripts
126 This boolean relation is an alias for
128 for backwards compatibility; it used to
129 be that the behavior defined by
131 above defaulted to false, and
132 .I buggy_init_scripts
133 would enable superblock time field to be wrong by up to 24 hours. When
134 we changed the default, we also renamed this boolean relation to
135 .IR accept_time_fudge.
137 .I clear_test_fs_flag
138 This boolean relation controls whether or not
141 the test_fs flag if the ext4 filesystem is available on the system. It
144 .I defer_check_on_battery
145 This boolean relation controls whether or not the interval between
146 filesystem checks (either based on time or number of mounts) should
147 be doubled if the system is running on battery. This setting defaults to
150 .I indexed_dir_slack_percentage
153 repacks a indexed directory, reserve the specified percentage of
154 empty space in each leaf nodes so that a few new entries can
155 be added to the directory without splitting leaf nodes, so that
156 the average fill ratio of directories can be maintained at a
157 higher, more efficient level. This relation defaults to 20
163 relation contains a relative pathname, then the log file will be placed
164 in the directory named by the
169 This relation contains an alternate directory that will be used if the
170 directory specified by
172 is not available or is not writeable.
175 If this boolean relation is true, them if the directories specified by
179 are not available or are not yet writeable, e2fsck will save the output
180 in a memory buffer, and a child process will periodically test to see if
181 the log directory has become available after the boot sequence has
182 mounted the requiste filesytem for reading/writing. This implements the
183 functionality provided by
185 for e2fsck log files.
188 This relation specifies the file name where a copy of e2fsck's output
189 will be written. If certain problem reports are suppressed using the
190 .I max_count_problems
191 relation, (or on a per-problem basis using the
193 relation), the full set of problem reports will be written to the log
194 file. The filename may contain various percent-expressions (%D, %T, %N,
195 etc.) which will be expanded so that the file name for the log file can
196 include things like date, time, device name, and other run-time
199 section for more details.
201 .I max_count_problems
202 This relation specifies the maximum number of problem reports of a
203 particular type will be printed to stdout before further problem reports
204 of that type are squelched. This can be useful if the console is slow
205 (i.e., connected to a serial port) and so a large amount of output could
206 end up delaying the boot process for a long time (potentially hours).
209 If this boolean relation is true, e2fsck will print the file system
210 features as part of its verbose reporting (i.e., if the
215 If this boolean relation is true, e2fsck will run as if the options
217 are always specified. This will cause e2fsck to print timing statistics
218 on a pass by pass basis for full file system checks.
221 If this boolean relation is true, e2fsck will run as if the option
223 is always specified. This will cause e2fsck to print some additional
224 information at the end of each full file system check.
225 .SH THE [problems] STANZA
228 stanza names a problem code specified with a leading "0x" followed by
230 The value of the tag is a subsection where the relations in that
231 subsection override the default treatment of that particular problem
234 Note that inappropriate settings in this stanza may cause
236 to behave incorrectly, or even crash. Most system administrators should
237 not be making changes to this section without referring to source code.
239 Within each problem code's subsection, the following tags may be used:
242 This relation allows the message which is printed when this filesystem
243 inconsistency is detected to be overridden.
246 This boolean relation overrides the default behavior controlling
247 whether this filesystem problem should be automatically fixed when
249 is running in preen mode.
252 This integer relation overrides the
253 .I max_count_problems
254 parameter (set in the options section) for this particular problem.
257 This boolean relation overrides the default behavior determining
258 whether or not the filesystem will be marked as inconsistent if the user
259 declines to fix the reported problem.
262 This boolean relation overrides whether the default answer for this
263 problem (or question) should be "no".
266 This boolean relation overrides the default behavior controlling
267 whether or not the description for this filesystem problem should
270 is running in preen mode.
273 This boolean relation overrides the default behavior controlling
274 whether or not the description for this filesystem problem should
275 be suppressed when a problem forced not to be fixed, either because
279 option or because the
281 flag has been set for the problem.
284 This boolean option, if set to true, forces a problem to never be fixed.
285 That is, it will be as if the user problem responds 'no' to the question
286 of 'should this problem be fixed?'. The
288 option even overrides the
290 option given on the command-line (just for the specific problem, of course).
291 .SH THE [scratch_files] STANZA
292 The following relations are defined in the
297 If the directory named by this relation exists and is writeable, then
298 e2fsck will attempt to use this directory to store scratch files instead
299 of using in-memory data structures.
302 If this relation is set, then in-memory data structures be used if the
303 number of directories in the filesystem are fewer than amount specified.
306 This relation controls whether or not the scratch file directory is used
307 instead of an in-memory data structure for directory information. It
311 This relation controls whether or not the scratch file directory is used
312 instead of an in-memory data structure when tracking inode counts. It
315 E2fsck has the facility to save the information from an e2fsck run in a
316 directory so that a system administrator can review its output at their
317 leisure. This allows information captured during the automatic e2fsck
318 preen run, as well as a manually started e2fsck run, to be saved for
319 posterity. This facility is controlled by the
322 .IR log_dir_fallback ,
331 may contain the following percent-expressions that will be expanded as
335 The current day of the month
338 The current date; this is a equivalent of
342 The hostname of the system.
345 The current hour in 24-hour format (00..23)
348 The current month as a two-digit number (01..12)
351 The current minute (00..59)
354 The name of the block device containing the file system, with any
355 directory pathname stripped off.
358 The pid of the e2fsck process
361 The current time expressed as the number of seconds since 1970-01-01
365 The current second (00..59)
368 The current time; this is equivalent of
372 The name of the user running e2fsck.
375 This percent expression does not expand to anything, but it signals that
376 any following date or time expressions should be expressed in UTC time
377 instead of the local timzeone.
380 The last two digits of the current year (00..99)
383 The current year (i.e., 2012).
385 The following recipe will prevent e2fsck from aborting during the boot
386 process when a filesystem contains orphaned files. (Of course, this is
387 not always a good idea, since critical files that are needed for the
388 security of the system could potentially end up in lost+found, and
389 starting the system without first having a system administrator check
390 things out may be dangerous.)
399 description = "@u @i %i. "
403 The following recipe will cause an e2fsck logfile to be written to the
404 directory /var/log/e2fsck, with a filename that contains the device
405 name, the hostname of the system, the date, and time: e.g.,
406 "e2fsck-sda3.server.INFO.20120314-112142". If the directory containing
407 /var/log is located on the root file system
408 which is initially mounted read-only, then the output will be saved in
409 memory and written out once the root file system has been remounted
410 read/write. To avoid too much detail from being written to the serial
411 console (which could potentially slow down the boot sequence), only print
412 no more than 16 instances of each type of file system corruption.
417 max_count_problems = 16
419 log_dir = /var/log/e2fsck
421 log_filename = e2fsck-%N.%h.INFO.%D-%T
428 The configuration file for