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Ubuntu 30-Mount Check Annoyance

micrux.net — How to fix the annoying filesystem check every 30 mounts with Ubuntu.

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Valermos 1 year 43 days ago, made popular 1 year 42 days ago

583 diggs
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picpak, on 10/10/2007, -12/+6Um, this isn't exactly something I would 'fix'. I put it up to 50 and all of my filesystem checks failed.
- Valermos, on 10/10/2007, -0/+24It doesn't change how often the checks happen... It just makes the checks happen at shutdown rather than at boot so it's less annoying. And it asks you whether or not it's a convenient time to run the check.
  - TheDarkTipper, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1fsck!
- AirRaven, on 10/10/2007, -10/+2On the other hand, the OS runs fine regardless.
  
  Look at Windows- how often does your average Windows user check up on their filesystem? Does it stop them having a usable OS?
  - strabes, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Assuming they are an average user who knows something about security and decent browsing habits, maybe a year (probably less) before their system becomes unusably slow. You could not reboot linux for several months and it would be fine.
  - takeda, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1Windows does check like that too, but it is much more rarely, I remember it doing once on my computer.
    Most people probably don't notice because they reinstall the OS in shorter time :)
- nogami, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8I'm not sure why this is necessary - the other linux distros that I've used will automatically detect if the filesystem is dirty on startup and check only when something is wrong.
  - suppressingfire, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7The problem is that the filesystem can become corrupt in ways the logging feature may not be able to discover.
    
    The logging feature was never meant to guarantee protection of the filesystem against crashes. It helps when the filesystem isn't unmounted cleanly, but there are cases where the filesystem's integrity may be disrupted during a system crash or a power loss.
- jcronkhite, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Just read the headline, huh? I think this is great! It's a necessary evil (the disk check that is), but it make so much more sense on shutdown.
macoafi, on 10/10/2007, -7/+3That's pretty cool
trogdoor, on 10/10/2007, -0/+14https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AutoFsck
- Puppetfunk, on 10/10/2007, -17/+7I thought that said ***** at first.
blumer, on 10/10/2007, -4/+38Not that big a deal when you boot < 10 times a year.

Suppose I could do it on the laptop if I really wanted to.
- geminitojanus, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7The only time I ever shut down my laptops is when suspend doesn't work (i.e. before I fixed the fscking ACPI DSDT entry on this POS Toshiba machine). I'm not sure if that's true for everyone, but it just seems so much easier to just close the lid and have the machine suspend and be right back to where I was when I open the lid, rather than having to wait for the machine to shut down and having to wait for it to boot back up.
- blumer, on 10/10/2007, -2/+15You know what? The more I think about it, I want to retract my comment. Yes, myself and many other Linux users may just let it run all the time, the more Linux (Ubuntu in particular) is hitting mainstream, non-geek usage, this could be really useful. Feel free to bury.
- reed311, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3I guess the electricity bill isn't a problem.
  - devjunkie, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Generally a myth.
    
    I have 3 or 4 machines that run 24/7 in my house and it hardly puts a dent in my bill. It's a very negligible amount.
    
    Not to mention you can turn off the HDs and lower the CPU usage so it's using next to no electricity.
    - sancho, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Fine for newer PCs with more efficient processors and better power saving abilities. P4-based PCs, though, suck power like mad.
      - Hellmark, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1That's P4s, but they sucked across the board, with heat issues and what not (reason why Intel didnt base their latest stuff off the P4 line).
        
        You can get some decent power savings on older hardware. I have some PIIs that I have using minimal power without a problem.
- db113456, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5The question is very real, just imagine a sales agent running from client to client, having a 30-60 minute session, than shutting down and driving for the next client, sooner than you thing, he would have racked up 10 reboots in a day, that makes for a fsck every 3 days or so, do that on 250gig disk, and it becomes an annoyance.
  
  Other example, student in university, has 5 lectures a day, and 4 long breaks. end up rebooting her computer 6 times minimum, that will result in lengthy fsck once a week, likely when she wants to take notes in class. Very painful.
  
  I think tune2fs / reiserfstune should get a taskbar widget to adjust some of the properties, and a red button to force check upon the next reboot, think if that ?
  - sacherjj, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2That is what hibernate and suspend are for. I've booted my home Ubuntu systems maybe 15 times in the last 6 months.
    - Hellmark, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Yeah, if you suspend, you aren't fully mounting and unmounting the drive each time, so not upping the count at all.
    - bhalo05, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Yeah, if only it worked half of the times as it should...
- myfanwy, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1that is an incredibly arrogant response.
  
  considering the issues around the world with energy resources, fuel prices, pollution, etc. not re-booting your computer to save 30 seconds is an almighty selfish, self-centred, i don't give a ***** about anybody else answer. wankers
jbus, on 10/10/2007, -1/+12Very nice... This is especially good for fending off unnecessary questions from people that you've helped recently convert from Windows to Ubuntu.
badassninja, on 10/10/2007, -3/+7100%, pure pimp. Who ever had the idea of running it when your shutting down was on top of his game that day.
shuffle2, on 10/10/2007, -2/+30it's not a bug, it's a feature.
db113456, on 10/10/2007, -6/+16Here is the scary answer::
tune2fs 1.38 (30-Jun-2005)
Usage: tune2fs [-c max_mounts_count] [-e errors_behavior] [-g group]
[-i interval[d|m|w]] [-j] [-J journal_options]
[-l] [-s sparse_flag] [-m reserved_blocks_percent]
[-o [^]mount_options[,...]] [-r reserved_blocks_count]
[-u user] [-C mount_count] [-L volume_label] [-M last_mounted_dir]
[-O [^]feature[,...]] [-T last_check_time] [-U UUID] device

check the count option -C and set the desired interval, you may want to look at the other options also :-)
- sishgupta, on 10/10/2007, -3/+3I dugg you down by accident.
  Yours is the most right way imo.
- db113456, on 10/10/2007, -3/+3You should look at your settings, and check the -i option for interval, that may be set to one month ...
  also look at the [-c max_mounts_count] to set the max count of reboots before a check is forced.
  
  it could be a long explanation, i run a lot of servers (Linux) and even my desktop runs for weeks and months at a time, before i ever reboot them, so for me it is not the max reboot count but more like the interval that gets the fsck activated.
  
  Now i did not change the default behavior, it is ok to have the file system checked from time to time, just in case something went wrong, but again, i agree, if you put your computer to sleep every day, maybe 30 reboots is a bit too frequent for a full fsck every month ...
- Thyris, on 10/10/2007, -9/+2that is the most user-unfriendly thing i've seen.
  - strabes, on 10/10/2007, -7/+2You must be using OS X, where everything is fed to you.
  - srg13, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Who cares? Why would an average user ever want to change this? I'm sure they can put up with a 60 second filesystem check every 30 boots...
- MeneerR, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4This was about a package that
  1) asked you if you wanted to check your filesystem
  2) did it at shutdown rather than boot
  3) did it in a graphical pleasing way during X
  4) did not turn off auto-check (so if you always say No, it will still force one at boot-up)
  
  Your solution:
  1) is more dangerous
  2) less userfriendly
  3) gives the impression you didn't read the ***** article
- NikkiA, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0I wouldn't say its scary... I trust using tune2fs a lot more than some strange package that claims to do something in an unnecessary way. Especially when its been presented in a way that makes me think 'spam'.
RaximKoron, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4sweet, now I won't get frustrated once a month with my laptop
scooby2, on 10/10/2007, -3/+13Someone has rebooted 30 time? Sounds like they must have broken hardware:-)

Seriously though doing a file system check every once in a while is not a bad idea. If you turn your computer off every day or every week, something like AutoFsck is the way to go. Easiest thing to do if you reboot everyday is to bump it up to every quarter or every 6 months. No needs to fsck that often unless you are having problems or lose power often.
- gfnw, on 10/10/2007, -3/+5Or maybe people don't need to leave thier home desktops on 24/7, using power, creating heat and noise, when they've no need to.
  
  I don't run any servers from my home machine, so why the hell should I leave it on when I'm not using it? So I can get an erection and jizz all over my uptime stats? No thanks.
ekravchenko, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5I guess the idea is that you don't restart your machine very often, unless you have a laptop....
CatalystGhost, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8This is nice. I dual-boot Windows so that I can actually play games (Wine, etc. can be a bitch), and, yeah, running into that gets annoying. Definitely a useful digg.
over9, on 10/10/2007, -7/+9With Linux, it's an annoyance, with Windows it's a major bug.
- CCmachined, on 10/10/2007, -4/+3?
  - pearlygate, on 10/10/2007, -7/+3it shows Linux fanboyism
- buggu, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0I have never encountered a file system check while using XP SP2 (and recently that filesystem got corrupted, but that's another story), however SP1 would periodically check the filesystem on boot every dozen startups or so and I remember it being a nuisance because it would seem like every shutdown it would assume had resulted in errors and it would check for them. With Ubuntu I never even notice if the filesystem check even takes place because it occurs in a reasonable timeframe.
tiftof, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Nice tool. I was using bonager until today which also did the job just great. But with this, no program has to stay in the notification area all the time.
Balla79, on 10/10/2007, -3/+6This is not a Ubuntu or Linux feature, it's an ext3 filesystem feature. Use ReiserFS instead.
- db113456, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3If you decide to change to ReiserFS you should use
  reiserfstune
  http://www.namesys.com/reiserfstune.html
  
  But you would have to backup, repartition, reformat and restore your partition to do that, and likely would not see any performance difference due to the fact that Reiser is specially good with large amount of very small files.
  And, you need to check if your Distribution actually supports booting from ReiserFS if the partition you want to convert is a boot or (root) partition. Small details you should know, and Balla79 should have mentioned alongside the suggestion to use this ultra modern file system.
  If my assumption is correct, and the user is new to Linux, as the nature of the original question would suggest, than the whole operation would surpass the users ability at this time.
- SuperCow1127, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5The problem with ReiserFS is that it's main developer is probably going to jail for killing his wife...
CCmachined, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3why this isnt the default i don't know. yesterday i told a friend Ubuntu was less bloated than Windows, so we had a boot race ... ***** filesystem check! he won, but i should have >__>

@ the guy who said he increased the check to every 50 mounts and it failed... WTF? i thought ext3 was better than NTFS? NTFS never needs checking and runs for years ....
- db113456, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1Good for you, just a good advice from a friend:
  Keep a good backup of your data :-)
  You do keep a good backup don't you ?
- MeneerR, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2All file-systems can become corrupted. Three ways on the top of my head: Temporary power-out (like 1 ms), forcing a shutdown by holding the button, holding a ***** telephone too near to your drive. Not only that, but drives just wear off.
  
  NTFS will allways maintain integrity, but you might loose data. Ext3 will always maintain integrity, and might loose data. Ext3, like Reiser will log its actions though. So, forcing a shutdown .. pulling the electricity and such will NOT corrupt your drive, unlike with NTFS where you might loose data.
  
  FAT32 was worse though. You wouldn't just loose data, you would loose integrity. (badly linked stuff such that your drivers would ehm crash the kernel)
sctwp09, on 10/10/2007, -10/+1Too bad Ubuntu still sucks.
bruenig, on 10/10/2007, -6/+2If you like this article's completely unnecessary usage of Ubuntu whilst referring to something with almost complete linux universality, you will also like this: http://digg.com/linux_unix/Canonical_Ubuntu_Kernel
- MeneerR, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Well, he provided a program that works on Ubuntu. You can create packages for other distro's if you want. But this tweak currently is HIGHLY ubuntu specific. I am sorry. You are just trolling _this time_.
funkytaco, on 10/10/2007, -3/+4Have it fsck every 3 million mounts:
sudo tune2fs -c 3000000 /dev/hda1

Though, if your computer is rebooting that much, you might want to get a new computer.
- Valermos, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3That would definitely not be good for you filesystem.
- hackerssidekick, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Or you could just set it to 0 ... it's not like you're ever going to reach 3 million!
mdman, on 10/10/2007, -9/+0Ubuntu is annoying..
but of course, you get what you pay for...
- marx2k, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0You're annoying, and I got you for free... HEY YOU'RE RIGHT!!!
CaptainHarlock, on 10/10/2007, -4/+4Smells like the Windows to Ubuntu switchers are carrying over their stupidity. Next lesson to follow is in repairing an ext3 file system.
- MeneerR, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5This is not about turning it off! This is about doing it at shutdown and offering you a chance to cancel. Cancel for 30 days? Check will still be forced at boot. No danger. You should read the ***** article, thank you.
- NikkiA, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0I know a lot of people that 'shut down every night' out of habit, even after switching to linux. They shutdown properly, but the ext2/3 mount count check interval will insist on fsck'ing after that many mounts, regardless of whether the system was shutdown correctly.
  
  Also, if you're using a removable/external drive that you mount/unmount a lot, you are more likely to find the 30 mount interval annoying.
baalzebub, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3do you reboot so often that a filesystem check every 30 mounts is that annoying?
- marx2k, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0Only when the power to my house fails when I'm not at home. But at that point I'm not noticing the fs check
  - MeneerR, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3In that case you NEED the fs check
- stoffe, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Laptop.
MWeather, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I only reboot when a new kernel comes out.
pcmacman, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1I'm not really sure why everyone thinks this is a good idea.

I'd rather spend a few more minutes at boot time once every few months if it helps keep the integrity of my files in check.
- MeneerR, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3The article is about a package which adds a check an OPTIONAL check shutdown. If you never do that, it will still force a check at boot.
rmxz, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4I just wish it did it at SHUTDOWN rather than at BOOT time.

At a sales demo, starting a meeting waiting for fsck sucks.
However when I shut down and put it back in my laptop bag I don't care if it spends 10 minutes fscking.

Why oh why did they decide to do this on startup rather than shutdwn
- Lazaryn, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Having a laptop running in a sealed bag isn't the smartest thing to do but I do agree with you that having it on shutdown would be nicer.
- Hellmark, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Did you read the article? This is on how to do it at shutdown.
  
  From a technical standpoint though, doing it at boot does offer some advantages. Offers slightly less stress on the drive (IE, doing it before it is mounted, rather than unmounting then checking)., also if there was an issue that developed between boots, or was an improper shutdown, it can help fix that before trying to mount and use a possibly corrupt partition. Quite people don't shut down computers properly, which would skip the check at shutdown and also cause issues for the next time it boots.
  - Valermos, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0It actually doesn't run the check after it unmounts and right before it shuts down, it restarts the computer, runs the check, and then shuts it down.
- NikkiA, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0What if the shutdown is an automated shutdown initiated by a UPS system that has reached its 'low battery' alarm level? What if you need to shutdown fast - you don't want to then have to sit through a 10 minute full forced fsck just because you didn't realise you had reached your mount count interval. Out of the two options, startup is almost certainly a safer time to check the filesystem integrity, if it needs to be checked. There are ways that it could have been designed to reduce the annoyance on a desktop/interactive system, but the way things are, it has to be done how its done.
crashnaz, on 10/10/2007, -5/+0STUPID! It checks itself for a reason. If you are rebooting the box more than 30 times in less than a year then you have issues.
- Hellmark, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Read the article. The article isnt about disabling it, but rather changing it to shutdown instead of boot time, and also changing the frequency.
xspinkickx, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3you guys do realize if you need to quickly boot and fsck starts up you can press ctrl+D and then CTRL+c to continue with the bootup process and then the next time it boots it will recheck the filesystem right?
Cole2026, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2It does not bother me enough to get rid of it. It sort of helps, and a couple minutes is not much.
dezent, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1omfg ! "annoying filesystem check"

i bet you really like broken filesystems ?

please stop using computers!!
go back to windows me and disable scandisk or whatever but dont give crappy advice to beginners!!

fscking stupid!
Valermos, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0I guess I should have thought of a better title for this before posting it to Digg... A lot of people seem to be misled into thinking it's about turning off the file system check completely. I also didn't realize that this wasn't an Ubuntu-specific issue. Ext3 is the default filesystem for Ubuntu, but I used to use reiserfs when I was working with Gentoo.
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Ubuntu 30-Mount Check Annoyance

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