1e2fsck.conf(5) File Formats Manual e2fsck.conf(5)
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6 e2fsck.conf - Configuration file for e2fsck
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9 e2fsck.conf is the configuration file for e2fsck(8). It controls the
10 default behavior of e2fsck(8) while it is checking ext2, ext3, or ext4
11 filesystems.
12 The e2fsck.conf file uses an INI-style format. Stanzas, or top-level
14 sections, are delimited by square braces: [ ]. Within each section,
15 each line defines a relation, which assigns tags to values, or to a
16 subsection, which contains further relations or subsections. An exam‐
17 ple of the INI-style format used by this configuration file follows
18 below:
19 [section1]
21 tag1 = value_a
22 tag1 = value_b
23 tag2 = value_c
24 [section 2]
26 tag3 = {
27 subtag1 = subtag_value_a
28 subtag1 = subtag_value_b
29 subtag2 = subtag_value_c
30 }
31 tag1 = value_d
32 tag2 = value_e
33 }
34 Comments are delimited by a semicolon (';') or a hash ('#') character
36 at the beginning of the comment, and are terminated by the end of line
37 character.
38 Tags and values must be quoted using double quotes if they contain spa‐
40 ces. Within a quoted string, the standard backslash interpretations
41 apply: "\n" (for the newline character), "\t" (for the tab character),
42 "\b" (for the backspace character), and "\\" (for the backslash charac‐
43 ter).
44 The following stanzas are used in the e2fsck.conf file. They will be
46 described in more detail in future sections of this document.
47 [options]
49 This stanza contains general configuration parameters for
50 e2fsck's behavior.
51 [problems]
53 This stanza allows the administrator to reconfigure how e2fsck
54 handles various filesystem inconsistencies.
55 [scratch_files]
57 This stanza controls when e2fsck will attempt to use scratch
58 files to reduce the need for memory.
59
61 The following relations are defined in the [options] stanza.
62 allow_cancellation
64 If this relation is set to a boolean value of true, then if the
65 user interrupts e2fsck using ^C, and the filesystem is not
66 explicitly flagged as containing errors, e2fsck will exit with
67 an exit status of 0 instead of 32. This setting defaults to
68 false.
69 accept_time_fudge
71 Unfortunately, due to Windows' unfortunate design decision to
72 configure the hardware clock to tick localtime, instead of the
73 more proper and less error-prone UTC time, many users end up in
74 the situation where the system clock is incorrectly set at the
75 time when e2fsck is run.
76 Historically this was usually due to some distributions having
78 buggy init scripts and/or installers that didn't correctly
79 detect this case and take appropriate countermeasures. However,
80 it's still possible, despite the best efforts of init script and
81 installer authors to not be able to detect this misconfigura‐
82 tion, usually due to a buggy or misconfigured virtualization
83 manager or the installer not having access to a network time
84 server during the installation process. So by default, we allow
85 the superblock times to be fudged by up to 24 hours. This can
86 be disabled by setting accept_time_fudge to the boolean value of
87 false. This setting defaults to true.
88 broken_system_clock
90 The e2fsck(8) program has some heuristics that assume that the
91 system clock is correct. In addition, many system programs make
92 similar assumptions. For example, the UUID library depends on
93 time not going backwards in order for it to be able to make its
94 guarantees about issuing universally unique ID's. Systems with
95 broken system clocks, are well, broken. However, broken system
96 clocks, particularly in embedded systems, do exist. E2fsck will
97 attempt to use heuristics to determine if the time can not be
98 trusted; and to skip time-based checks if this is true. If this
99 boolean is set to true, then e2fsck will always assume that the
100 system clock can not be trusted.
101 buggy_init_scripts
103 This boolean relation is an alias for accept_time_fudge for
104 backwards compatibility; it used to be that the behavior defined
105 by accept_time_fudge above defaulted to false, and
106 buggy_init_scripts would enable superblock time field to be
107 wrong by up to 24 hours. When we changed the default, we also
108 renamed this boolean relation to accept_time_fudge.
109 clear_test_fs_flag
111 This boolean relation controls whether or not e2fsck(8) will
112 offer to clear the test_fs flag if the ext4 filesystem is avail‐
113 able on the system. It defaults to true.
114 defer_check_on_battery
116 This boolean relation controls whether or not the interval
117 between filesystem checks (either based on time or number of
118 mounts) should be doubled if the system is running on battery.
119 This setting defaults to true.
120 indexed_dir_slack_percentage
122 When e2fsck(8) repacks a indexed directory, reserve the speci‐
123 fied percentage of empty space in each leaf nodes so that a few
124 new entries can be added to the directory without splitting leaf
125 nodes, so that the average fill ratio of directories can be
126 maintained at a higher, more efficient level. This relation
127 defaults to 20 percent.
128 log_dir
130 If the log_filename relation contains a relative pathname, then
131 the log file will be placed in the directory named by the
132 log_dir relation.
133 log_dir_fallback
135 This relation contains an alternate directory that will be used
136 if the directory specified by log_dir is not available or is not
137 writeable.
138 log_dir_wait
140 If this boolean relation is true, them if the directories speci‐
141 fied by log_dir or log_dir_fallback are not available or are not
142 yet writeable, e2fsck will save the output in a memory buffer,
143 and a child process will periodically test to see if the log
144 directory has become available after the boot sequence has
145 mounted the requiste filesytem for reading/writing. This imple‐
146 ments the functionality provided by logsave(8) for e2fsck log
147 files.
148 log_filename
150 This relation specifies the file name where a copy of e2fsck's
151 output will be written. If certain problem reports are sup‐
152 pressed using the max_count_problems relation, (or on a per-
153 problem basis using the max_count relation), the full set of
154 problem reports will be written to the log file. The filename
155 may contain various percent-expressions (%D, %T, %N, etc.) which
156 will be expanded so that the file name for the log file can
157 include things like date, time, device name, and other run-time
158 parameters. See the LOGGING section for more details.
159 max_count_problems
161 This relation specifies the maximum number of problem reports of
162 a particular type will be printed to stdout before further prob‐
163 lem reports of that type are squelched. This can be useful if
164 the console is slow (i.e., connected to a serial port) and so a
165 large amount of output could end up delaying the boot process
166 for a long time (potentially hours).
167 report_features
169 If this boolean relation is true, e2fsck will print the file
170 system features as part of its verbose reporting (i.e., if the
171 -v option is specified)
172 report_time
174 If this boolean relation is true, e2fsck will run as if the
175 options -tt are always specified. This will cause e2fsck to
176 print timing statistics on a pass by pass basis for full file
177 system checks.
178 report_verbose
180 If this boolean relation is true, e2fsck will run as if the
181 option -v is always specified. This will cause e2fsck to print
182 some additional information at the end of each full file system
183 check.
184
186 Each tag in the [problems] stanza names a problem code specified with a
187 leading "0x" followed by six hex digits. The value of the tag is a
188 subsection where the relations in that subsection override the default
189 treatment of that particular problem code.
190 Note that inappropriate settings in this stanza may cause e2fsck to
192 behave incorrectly, or even crash. Most system administrators should
193 not be making changes to this section without referring to source code.
194 Within each problem code's subsection, the following tags may be used:
196 description
198 This relation allows the message which is printed when this
199 filesystem inconsistency is detected to be overridden.
200 preen_ok
202 This boolean relation overrides the default behavior controlling
203 whether this filesystem problem should be automatically fixed
204 when e2fsck is running in preen mode.
205 max_count
207 This integer relation overrides the max_count_problems parameter
208 (set in the options section) for this particular problem.
209 no_ok This boolean relation overrides the default behavior determining
211 whether or not the filesystem will be marked as inconsistent if
212 the user declines to fix the reported problem.
213 no_default
215 This boolean relation overrides whether the default answer for
216 this problem (or question) should be "no".
217 preen_nomessage
219 This boolean relation overrides the default behavior controlling
220 whether or not the description for this filesystem problem
221 should be suppressed when e2fsck is running in preen mode.
222 no_nomsg
224 This boolean relation overrides the default behavior controlling
225 whether or not the description for this filesystem problem
226 should be suppressed when a problem forced not to be fixed,
227 either because e2fsck is run with the -n option or because the
228 force_no flag has been set for the problem.
229 force_no
231 This boolean option, if set to true, forces a problem to never
232 be fixed. That is, it will be as if the user problem responds
233 'no' to the question of 'should this problem be fixed?'. The
234 force_no option even overrides the -y option given on the com‐
235 mand-line (just for the specific problem, of course).
236
238 The following relations are defined in the [scratch_files] stanza.
239 directory
241 If the directory named by this relation exists and is writeable,
242 then e2fsck will attempt to use this directory to store scratch
243 files instead of using in-memory data structures.
244 numdirs_threshold
246 If this relation is set, then in-memory data structures be used
247 if the number of directories in the filesystem are fewer than
248 amount specified.
249 dirinfo
251 This relation controls whether or not the scratch file directory
252 is used instead of an in-memory data structure for directory
253 information. It defaults to true.
254 icount This relation controls whether or not the scratch file directory
256 is used instead of an in-memory data structure when tracking
257 inode counts. It defaults to true.
258
260 E2fsck has the facility to save the information from an e2fsck run in a
261 directory so that a system administrator can review its output at their
262 leisure. This allows information captured during the automatic e2fsck
263 preen run, as well as a manually started e2fsck run, to be saved for
264 posterity. This facility is controlled by the log_filename, log_dir,
265 log_dir_fallback, and log_dir_wait relations in the [options] stanza.
266 The filename in log_filename may contain the following percent-expres‐
268 sions that will be expanded as follows.
269 %d The current day of the month
271 %D The current date; this is a equivalent of %Y%m%d
273 %h The hostname of the system.
275 %H The current hour in 24-hour format (00..23)
277 %m The current month as a two-digit number (01..12)
279 %M The current minute (00..59)
281 %N The name of the block device containing the file system, with
283 any directory pathname stripped off.
284 %p The pid of the e2fsck process
286 %s The current time expressed as the number of seconds since
288 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
289 %S The current second (00..59)
291 %T The current time; this is equivalent of %H%M%S
293 %u The name of the user running e2fsck.
295 %U This percent expression does not expand to anything, but it sig‐
297 nals that any following date or time expressions should be
298 expressed in UTC time instead of the local timzeone.
299 %y The last two digits of the current year (00..99)
301 %Y The current year (i.e., 2012).
303
305 The following recipe will prevent e2fsck from aborting during the boot
306 process when a filesystem contains orphaned files. (Of course, this is
307 not always a good idea, since critical files that are needed for the
308 security of the system could potentially end up in lost+found, and
309 starting the system without first having a system administrator check
310 things out may be dangerous.)
311 [problems]
313 0x040002 = {
314 preen_ok = true
315 description = "@u @i %i. "
316 }
317 The following recipe will cause an e2fsck logfile to be written to the
319 directory /var/log/e2fsck, with a filename that contains the device
320 name, the hostname of the system, the date, and time: e.g., "e2fsck-
321 sda3.server.INFO.20120314-112142". If the directory containing
322 /var/log is located on the root file system which is initially mounted
323 read-only, then the output will be saved in memory and written out once
324 the root file system has been remounted read/write. To avoid too much
325 detail from being written to the serial console (which could poten‐
326 tially slow down the boot sequence), only print no more than 16
327 instances of each type of file system corruption.
328 [options]
330 max_count_problems = 16
331 log_dir = /var/log/e2fsck
332 log_filename = e2fsck-%N.%h.INFO.%D-%T
333 log_dir_wait = true
334
336 /etc/e2fsck.conf
337 The configuration file for e2fsck(8).
338
340 e2fsck(8)
341E2fsprogs version 1.42.9 December 2013 e2fsck.conf(5)