From owner-freebsd-questions  Wed Apr  5  6:39:52 2000
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To: "David J. Kanter" <djkanter@nwu.edu>,
	freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Fsck on mounted filesystems
References: <20000403192007.A59646@localhost.localdomain>
From: Lowell Gilbert <lowell@world.std.com>
Date: 05 Apr 2000 09:39:43 -0400
In-Reply-To: "David J. Kanter"'s message of Mon, 3 Apr 2000 19:20:07 -0500
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"David J. Kanter" <djkanter@nwu.edu> writes:

> I've got a questions that stems from my past Linux use: can fsck -p be run
> safely on mounted filesystems, like the root filesystem?
> 
> I ask this because the instructions for make world say to go into single
> user mode with "shutdown now" and then run fsck -p. I did this, and all
> seemed OK, but fsck was run on mounted filesystems, such as /.
> 
> The first thing you learn about Linux is to not run fsck on a mounted
> partition, like /.
> 
> So, why can I do it safely (apparently) with FreeBSD but not with Linux?

The short answer is that, no, you can't safely fsck a mounted
filesystem on FreeBSD either.  You're more likely to get away without
damaging it, but "more likely" isn't much of a guarantee.

Normally, if you really need to fsck on the run, you should shut down
to single-user mode first, and dismount the filesystem.  We do make an
exception for the root filesystem, which is often fsck'd while mounted
read-only.

 - Lowell


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