Question about output from "e2fsck" (file system check) run from ssh

WD Legacy Products My Book Live Duo
1

Folks,

While helping to debug a problem another user is having I ran a file system check (read only…no repair) to see what he should expect for normal output. The check ran fine, but I was told that both the “Free blocks” and “inodes” counts were wrong. Anybody have a clue if this is normal or not? Thank you.

NAS3:/# e2fsck -n /dev/md3
e2fsck 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Warning!  /dev/md3 is mounted.
Warning: skipping journal recovery because doing a read-only filesystem check.
/dev/md3 contains a file system with errors, check forced.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
Free blocks count wrong (39083330, counted=38614225).
Fix? no

Free inodes count wrong (44838574, counted=44724019).
Fix? no

/dev/md3: ********** WARNING: Filesystem still has errors **********

/dev/md3: 726866/45565440 files (3.2% non-contiguous), 6631197/45714527 blocks

Ron <><

2

I think that for that type of question is better for you to contact tech support.

3

I hesitate to call tech support when running something in the ssh environment…it generally does not show up on the prompt sheets :slight_smile:

4

Ron, my box reports the same rough number of “errors” as yours.

But one can’t count on that report being accurate anyway unless the filesystem is unmounted first…  The inode / block count can change WHILE the e2fsck program is running, hence the discrepency.

If you want some peace of mind, you can force an FSCK to run at next boot by executing the command

tune2fs -C 31 /dev/md3

This will tell the file system that it has been mounted 31 times since the last check.

By default, the /dev/md3 count has the mandatory mount check counter set at 30.

After you set it to 31, the next reboot will force fsck to run.

MAKE SURE YOU USE CAPITAL C.   Lower-case C does the opposite… it sets the max-mount-count to 31.  :)

1 Like
5

Thanks for the explanation…great. I may force the check, but was more interested if it was normal or not and your explanation makes sense and says it is very likely normal. I just recently RMA’d an MBL and am using the MBLD now only 244 hours and uncharacteristically skittish :slight_smile:

ron <><