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The e2fsck.conf file uses an INI-style format. Stanzas, or top-level sections, are delimited by square braces: [ ]. Within each section, each line defines a relation, which assigns tags to values, or to a subsection, which contains further relations or subsections. An example of the INI-style format used by this configuration file follows below:

   [section1]

       tag1 = value_a

       tag1 = value_b

       tag2 = value_c

   [section 2]

       tag3 = {

           subtag1 = subtag_value_a

           subtag1 = subtag_value_b

           subtag2 = subtag_value_c

       }

       tag1 = value_d

       tag2 = value_e

   }

Comments are delimited by a semicolon (’;’) or a hash (’#’) character at the beginning of the comment, and are terminated by the end of line character.

Tags and values must be quoted using double quotes if they contain spaces. Within a quoted string, the standard backslash interpretations apply: "\n" (for the newline character), "\t" (for the tab character), "\b" (for the backspace character), and "\\" (for the backslash character).

The following stanzas are used in the e2fsck.conf file. They will be described in more detail in future sections of this document.

[options]

This stanza contains general configuration parameters for e2fsck’s behavior.

[problems]

This stanza allows the administrator to reconfigure how e2fsck handles various filesystem inconsistencies.

[scratch_files]

This stanza controls when e2fsck will attempt to use scratch files to reduce the need for memory.

THE [options] STANZA

allow_cancellation

If this relation is set to a boolean value of true, then if the user interrupts e2fsck using ^C, and the filesystem is not explicitly flagged as containing errors, e2fsck will exit with an exit status of 0 instead of 32. This setting defaults to false.

accept_time_fudge

Unfortunately, due to Windows’ unfortunate design decision to configure the hardware clock to tick localtime, instead of the more proper and less error-prone UTC time, many users end up in the situation where the system clock is incorrectly set at the time when e2fsck is run.

Historically this was usually due to some distributions

having buggy init scripts and/or installers that didn’t correctly detect this case and take appropriate countermeasures. Unfortunately, this is occasionally true even today, usually due to a buggy or misconfigured virtualization manager or the installer not having access to a network time server during the installation process. So by default, we allow the superblock times to be fudged by up to 24 hours. This can be disabled by setting accept_time_fudge to the boolean value of false. This setting defaults to true.

broken_system_clock

The e2fsck(8) program has some heuristics that assume that the system clock is correct. In addition, many system programs make similar assumptions. For example, the UUID library depends on time not going backwards in order for it to be able to make its guarantees about issuing universally unique ID’s. Systems with broken system clocks, are well, broken. However, broken system clocks, particularly in embedded systems, do exist. E2fsck will attempt to use heuristics to determine if the time can not be trusted; and to skip time-based checks if this is true. If this boolean is set to true, then e2fsck will always assume that the system clock can not be trusted.

buggy_init_scripts

This boolean relation is an alias for accept_time_fudge for backwards compatibility; it used to be that the behavior defined by accept_time_fudge above defaulted to false, and buggy_init_scripts would enable superblock time field to be wrong by up to 24 hours. When we changed the default, we also renamed this boolean relation to accept_time_fudge.

clear_test_fs_flag

This boolean relation controls whether or not e2fsck(8) will offer to clear the test_fs flag if the ext4 filesystem is available on the system. It defaults to true.

defer_check_on_battery

This boolean relation controls whether or not the interval between filesystem checks (either based on time or number of mounts) should be doubled if the system is running on battery. This setting defaults to true.

indexed_dir_slack_percentage

When e2fsck(8) repacks a indexed directory, reserve the specified percentage of empty space in each leaf nodes so that a few new entries can be added to the directory without splitting leaf nodes, so that the average fill ratio of directories can be maintained at a higher, more efficient level. This relation defaults to 20 percent.

log_dir

If the log_filename relation contains a relative pathname, then the log file will be placed in the directory named by the log_dir relation.

log_dir_fallback

This relation contains an alternate directory that will be used if the directory specified by log_dir is not available or is not writeable.

log_dir_wait

If this boolean relation is true, them if the directories specified by log_dir or log_dir_fallback are not available or are not yet writeable, e2fsck will save the output in a memory buffer, and a child process will periodically test to see if the log directory has become available after the boot sequence has mounted the requiste filesytem for reading/writing. This implements the functionality provided by logsave(8) for e2fsck log files.

log_filename

This relation specifies the file name where a copy of e2fsck’s output will be written. If certain problem reports are suppressed using the max_count_problems relation, (or on a per-problem basis using the max_count relation), the full set of problem reports will be written to the log file. The filename may contain various percent-expressions (%D, %T, %N, etc.) which will be expanded so that the file name for the log file can include things like date, time, device name, and other run-time parameters. See the LOGGING section for more details.

max_count_problems

This relation specifies the maximum number of problem reports of a particular type will be printed to stdout before further problem reports of that type are squelched. This can be useful if the console is slow (i.e., connected to a serial port) and so a large amount of output could end up delaying the boot process for a long time (potentially hours).

report_features

If this boolean relation is true, e2fsck will print the file system features as part of its verbose reporting (i.e., if the -v option is specified)

report_time

If this boolean relation is true, e2fsck will run as if the options -tt are always specified. This will cause e2fsck to print timing statistics on a pass by pass basis for full file system checks.

report_verbose

If this boolean relation is true, e2fsck will run as if the option -v is always specified. This will cause e2fsck to print some additional information at the end of each full file system check.

THE [problems] STANZA

Note that inappropriate settings in this stanza may cause e2fsck to behave incorrectly, or even crash. Most system administrators should not be making changes to this section without referring to source code.

Within each problem code’s subsection, the following tags may be used:

description

This relation allows the message which is printed when this filesystem inconsistency is detected to be overridden.

preen_ok

This boolean relation overrides the default behavior controlling whether this filesystem problem should be automatically fixed when e2fsck is running in preen mode.

max_count

This integer relation overrides the max_count_problems parameter (set in the options section) for this particular problem.

no_ok

This boolean relation overrides the default behavior determining whether or not the filesystem will be marked as inconsistent if the user declines to fix the reported problem.

no_default

This boolean relation overrides whether the default answer for this problem (or question) should be "no".

preen_nomessage

This boolean relation overrides the default behavior controlling whether or not the description for this filesystem problem should be suppressed when e2fsck is running in preen mode.

no_nomsg

This boolean relation overrides the default behavior controlling whether or not the description for this filesystem problem should be suppressed when a problem forced not to be fixed, either because e2fsck is run with the -n option or because the force_no flag has been set for the problem.

force_no

This boolean option, if set to true, forces a problem to never be fixed. That is, it will be as if the user problem responds ’no’ to the question of ’should this problem be fixed?’. The force_no option even overrides the -y option given on the command-line (just for the specific problem, of course).

THE [scratch_files] STANZA

directory

If the directory named by this relation exists and is writeable, then e2fsck will attempt to use this directory to store scratch files instead of using in-memory data structures.

numdirs_threshold

If this relation is set, then in-memory data structures be used if the number of directories in the filesystem are fewer than amount specified.

dirinfo

This relation controls whether or not the scratch file directory is used instead of an in-memory data structure for directory information. It defaults to true.

icount

This relation controls whether or not the scratch file directory is used instead of an in-memory data structure when tracking inode counts. It defaults to true.

Logging

The filename in log_filename may contain the following percent-expressions that will be expanded as follows.

%d

The current day of the month

%D

The current date; this is a equivalent of %Y%m%d

%h

The hostname of the system.

%H

The current hour in 24-hour format (00..23)

%m

The current month as a two-digit number (01..12)

%M

The current minute (00..59)

%N

The name of the block device containing the file system, with any directory pathname stripped off.

%p

The pid of the e2fsck process

%s

The current time expressed as the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC

%S

The current second (00..59)

%T

The current time; this is equivalent of %H%M%S

%u

The name of the user running e2fsck.

%U

This percent expression does not expand to anything, but it signals that any following date or time expressions should be expressed in UTC time instead of the local timzeone.

%y

The last two digits of the current year (00..99)

%Y

The current year (i.e., 2012).

Examples

   [problems]

       0x040002 = {

           preen_ok = true

           description = "@u @i %i. "

       }

The following recipe will cause an e2fsck logfile to be written to the directory /var/log/e2fsck, with a filename that contains the device name, the hostname of the system, the date, and time: e.g., "e2fsck-sda3.server.INFO.20120314-112142". If the directory containing /var/log is located on the root file system which is initially mounted read-only, then the output will be saved in memory and written out once the root file system has been remounted read/write. To avoid too much detail from being written to the serial console (which could potentially slow down the boot sequence), only print no more than 16 instances of each type of file system corruption.

   [options]

       max_count_problems = 16

       log_dir = /var/log/e2fsck

       log_filename = e2fsck-%N.%h.INFO.%D-%T

       log_dir_wait = true

Files

/etc/e2fsck.conf

The configuration file for e2fsck(8) .

See Also

Table of Contents

• Name
• Description
• THE [options] STANZA
• THE [problems] STANZA
• THE [scratch_files] STANZA
• Logging
• Examples
• Files
• See Also