Is fsck obsolet for journaling FS? - Was: How do I Automount [snip]

[C de-Avillez]

On Sun, 29 Nov 2015 23:18:14 +0100
Ralf Mardorf <silver.bullet at zoho.com> wrote:

> Résumé
> 
> It's not recommended to drop fsck by dafault.
> 
> fstab can not simply be deleted.
> 
> And maybe it's still better to teach how to use fstab to mount devices
> during startup, than to confirm that learning this is not required,
> because it's possible to use gnome-disks?
> 
> 

I did not follow all of this thread, and I do not think I lost much.
But this email caught my attention.

* fsck is indeed needed, and will -- at least for the near future --
  still be needed. This does not mean most users will ever even hear
  about it, or use it. There _are_ filesystems not served by fsck,
  though (zfs comes to mind).

* Now, *most* of the times fsck is needed it will be deployed
  automagically on boot (because root is dirty). But if you have an
  external disk, or moved a disk from a dead system to a still-live
  one, you may need to run fsck by hand.

* fstab cannot simply be deleted, indeed. If it is there, leave it
  there. Assume that the installer saw a need to create it (usually
  when more than one disk is in use, or when LVM2 (man 8 lvm) is
  configured).

* man fstab shows what to do. blkid (8) can show you the uuid of the
  disk you want to add in fstab. It is recommended to use the uuid in
  fstab (as opposed to devices) because this gives one more assurance
  that your new drive in the system, with the data you need, will not
  be confused, in a monumental coincidence, with your swap space.

* Also, lsblk (8) gives one a nice overview of what is in the system.

* perhaps the fifth, and sixth fields in a fstab entry are
  confusing, so here it is: the fifth field should *always* be zero
  (no dump needed for this FS); the sixth field will set the sequence
  for fsck: 1 should be the root FS, any other disk should be > 1. (so
  fsck will first check the root, then check the next priority disks,
  and so on). On my laptop, for example, root is 1, boot is two, and
  the two additional filesystems I have (on a different SSD) are 3.

* so you want to dump your filesystem? Set the fifth filed in fstab to
  1, and install dump. You will probably be the first in a long time to
  do that. In the many years I have been dealing with UNIX, I have not
  used dump (except for _restoring_ a saved dump once) in a very long
  time. Even the restore was more than 10 years ago. There are now
  better ways of backing up your disks. *My* fstabs have not have dump
  set since I started using Linux.

* *most* users do not need to know about any of the above. But all of
  this is available if you are an advanced user that wants to do
  something out of the "common". 

-- 
ab alio expectes alteri quod feceris
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