Feature changed by: Andreas Jaeger (a_jaeger) Feature #306621, revision 27 Title: Possibility to skip filesystem check at startup - Hackweek IV: Unconfirmed + Hackweek IV: Rejected by Andreas Jaeger (a_jaeger) + reject date: 2009-07-10 21:12:34 + reject reason: Periodic filesystem check is off by default. Priority Requester: Important - openSUSE-11.2: Unconfirmed + openSUSE-11.2: Rejected by Andreas Jaeger (a_jaeger) + reject date: 2009-07-10 21:12:08 + reject reason: We've disabled the periodic filesystem check with ext3 + for new filesystems starting with 11.1, so this is not needed. Priority Requester: Important Requested by: Dominik Grafenhofer (dgrafenhofer) Description: Periodic filesystem checks at startup are important, but take a lot of time. For desktop users it is sometimes importent to startup their computer really fast (e.g. when giving a presentation). It is a nuissance, that these filesystem checks cannot be easily skipped (and postponed for the next startup) like under Ubuntu. Analogous to Ubuntu Linux I therefore propose to have a mechanism in place to stop a (periodic) filesystem check at startup when the escape key is pressed during the check. Link to (already implemented) Ubuntu Idea: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/11/ Update: I did not check, if this is already implemented, but when on battery no periodic filesystem check should be carried out as well. Discussion: #1: Andrés G. Aragoneses (knocte) (2009-07-01 22:29:57) -1 This feature is *really* one of the reasons why Windows systems are so unstable. What I would vote +1 is for an informative label that tells the user WHY the system is taking so long to start, because there are even users that don't know that the system must be properly shut down. #2: Dominik Grafenhofer (dgrafenhofer) (2009-07-02 07:48:57) @Aragoneses: I think that your argument is invalid, because my proposal is not to skip periodic filesystem checks all together, just to give a possibility to postpone it till the next startup. The number of startups "n" after which a periodic filesystem check is forced is chosen arbitrary anyway, so there should be no harm, when you give the user the oppurtunity to postpone it till startup "n+1". #3: Frank Helbo (fhc) (2009-07-02 14:25:29) With to days hardware with redundancy and predictive analyses and TTS on ext3. The periodic filesystem check should be disabled in the next release. Todays volumes are soo big, that a filesystem check on reboot takes to long to complete. If people still want this feature, thay can turn it on them selfs. For admins it is really a pain in the butt, when you reboot a system remotely, and it takes forever to restart or you are not able to answer a question on the screen do to this auto check. #16: Jan Engelhardt (jengelh) (2009-07-09 13:48:05) (reply to #3) If the regular ext3 check takes too long, maybe you give xfs a try ;-) #18: Frank Helbo (fhc) (2009-07-09 21:18:00) (reply to #16) Thanks, will do :o) #4: Dominik Grafenhofer (dgrafenhofer) (2009-07-02 14:40:24) @Frank Helbo: It is already possible (but not wise) to disable the periodic filesystem checks permanently by using tune2fs. All I am proposing is a way to skip a periodic filesystem check till the next startup of the system. This way you get the fast startup when desperately needed (e.g. when giving a presentation), and keep - at the same time - the filesystem stable. #5: Frank Helbo (fhc) (2009-07-02 21:20:52) Yes I know, and I am using a script that ensures that all disks with ext3 the fschk is disabled. This script I autorun on my servers at shutdown. Soo if you have added a new disk, that is gets disabled. #6: Boyd Gerber (gerberb) (2009-07-03 19:51:07) (reply to #5) I would really like this feature. It took my system 4 hours to boot because of this check. I have 5 1 TB drives. I wish I had choosen a differnet fs type. Also, is it possible to get this script you have? thanks, Please look into adding this feature for openSUSE 11.2. #7: Frank Helbo (fhc) (2009-07-03 23:16:01) (reply to #6) Here you have the script, which you can add to /etc/init.d/halt.local file which ensures it is run on each shutdown of your system. This way all new added volumes will also get the autocheck features disablet. Here is the script: echo for i in `cat /proc/mounts | awk '$3 ~ /ext3/ { print $1 }' ` do echo Disabling filesysten checks on $i tune2fs -c 0 $i >> /dev/null tune2fs -i 0 $i >> /dev/null done echo #8: Frank Helbo (fhc) (2009-07-03 23:19:04) The reason that this problem is not solved totally by the above script, is if the system crashes. Then the script is not run, and if you have added new volumes they will be checked if they are older then 60 days. #9: Ivan Jimenez (ivanjn) (2009-07-08 17:57:26) Could it be possible to be informed when shuting down system that in next boot the filesystem will be checked? And if so, skip it or do it later? It is possible to do the checking when shutting down the system or shutdown it after finishing? That would be interesting for desktop users, because you can leave the computer checking by night after you have worked all day and it doesn't matter if it lasts 20 minutes or 5 hours #10: Dominik Grafenhofer (dgrafenhofer) (2009-07-08 18:08:02) (reply to #9) Having the opition of carrying out the periodic filesystem check at shutdown would be nice as well. The main point, however, remains the same: It should be possible to skip periodic filesystem checks even on shutdown, because for laptop users it might be necessary to shut the machine down now (because you need to board a plane,...). #11: Elmar Stellnberger ATK (estellnb) (2009-07-08 19:06:16) related to Bug 506705 (https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=506705). - It is already possible to interrupt fsck on startup but that will prevent all other partitions wrongly from being mounted. #12: Dominik Grafenhofer (dgrafenhofer) (2009-07-08 19:25:29) (reply to #11) How can you interrupt a fsck on startup? I searched in google, but I could not find the solution. #13: Elmar Stellnberger ATK (estellnb) (2009-07-08 19:33:34) (reply to #12) At me a simple Ctrl-C during fsck did the job. #14: Frank Helbo (fhc) (2009-07-09 11:24:17) (reply to #13) Unfortunately CTRL-C does not work remotely, when the machine is rebooting #15: Frank Helbo (fhc) (2009-07-09 11:29:20) We dont need continuesly filesystem checks anymore. Todays hardware is stable and a filesystem check can even worsen thinks, if hardware has gone bad. Todays harddisks comes with S.M.A.R.T. which pre warns you before failure. Todays disks are to big, to do filesystems checks as they take to long. Even private users today have big disks for there photos and video i HD. We dont need the filesystemchecks on servers, because we use raid systems. Why not just disable it completely, and let users enable it if they need it. #17: Dominik Grafenhofer (dgrafenhofer) (2009-07-09 14:00:29) Please remember, I asked for this feature for desktop use. For servers, workstations, ... we can rely on the respective sysadmins knowledge of tunefs (if not, this girl/guy should not be a sysadmin anyways). The possibility to press "CTRL-C" is good (even if does not work currently due to a bug), but it should be also advertised on the splash screen and console (exactly like ubuntu is doing it). Last but not least: Please stop claiming that this will lead to system instability, because it is a blatant lie: Checking the file-system after 21 startups instead of after 20 will not impact system stability. #19: Andreas Jaeger (a_jaeger) (2009-07-10 12:19:47) The default for ext3 is already no regular fsck (since openSUSE 11.1), so the systems are setup properly. If you still get a fsck, it's because of an unclean shutdown and in this case you do want the fsck. Therefore I think we can reject this feature. #20: Dominik Grafenhofer (dgrafenhofer) (2009-07-10 13:22:42) (reply to #19) Oh sorry, I did not know that. Then the fsck on my laptop (in front of a huge audience) was probably triggered by my "old" home partition ;( + #21: Andreas Jaeger (a_jaeger) (2009-07-10 21:13:43) (reply to #20) + Ok, I reject this now. Still if somebody likes to patch the openSUSE + scripts, feel free to do so, I'm sure we take them. But it's nothing of + high-priority IMO. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/306621