System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems
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How the File System State Is Recorded

The fsck command uses a state flag, which is stored in the superblock, to record the condition of the file system. This flag is used by the fsck command to determine whether a file system needs to be checked for consistency. The flag is used by the /sbin/rcS script during booting and by the fsck -m command. If you ignore the result from the fsck -m command, all file systems can be checked regardless of the setting of the state flag.

For a description of the superblock, see Superblock.

The possible state flag values are described in the following table.

Table 22-1 Values of File System State Flags

State Flag Value

Description

FSACTIVE

Indicates a mounted file system that has modified data in memory. A mounted file system with this state flag indicates that user data or metadata would be lost if power to the system is interrupted.

FSBAD

Indicates that the file system contains inconsistent file system data.

FSCLEAN

Indicates an undamaged, cleanly unmounted file system.

FSLOG

Indicates that the file system has logging enabled. A file system with this flag set is either mounted or unmounted. If a file system has logging enabled, the only flags that it can have are FSLOG or FSBAD. A file system that has logging disable can have FSACTIVE, FSSTABLE, or FSCLEAN.

FSSTABLE

Indicates an idle mounted file system. A mounted file system with this state flag indicates that neither user data nor metadata would be lost if power to the system is interrupted.

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