From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Apr 3 04:16:07 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 9C7CA18F for ; Thu, 3 Apr 2014 04:16:07 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail.cyberleo.net (mtumishi.cyberleo.net [216.226.128.201]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 79CE8298 for ; Thu, 3 Apr 2014 04:16:07 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [172.16.44.4] (vitani.den.cyberleo.net [216.80.73.130]) by mail.cyberleo.net (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 840E33E38; Thu, 3 Apr 2014 00:15:59 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <533CE084.2060509@cyberleo.net> Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 23:16:04 -0500 From: CyberLeo Kitsana User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.3.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Ronald F. Guilmette" , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: A question about fsck and the -t option References: <2514.1396479646@server1.tristatelogic.com> In-Reply-To: <2514.1396479646@server1.tristatelogic.com> X-Enigmail-Version: 1.6 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.17 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 04:16:07 -0000 On 04/02/2014 06:00 PM, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote: > > In message <533C40BF.2010907@cyberleo.net>, > CyberLeo Kitsana wrote: > >> A glance at the source code[1] suggests that {fsck} attempts to infer the >> type from the fstab, and then the BSD disklabel. > > Based upon my limited perusal/skimming of the fsck man page, this appears > to be undocumented behavior. > > I shall be filing a documentation PR on this, because I'm a firm believer > that important aspects of behavior should be documented. Excellent idea. >> It does not appear to >> attempt a guess from the filesystem magic itself. > > Should it perhaps do so? I don't think so. Magical behaviour can be the source of much strife. Precisely what is fsck supposed to do if you create a zpool on a disk without first erasing the ufs magic therefrom, or vice versa, for example? It's much safer to have the operator declare the filesystem type explicitly, via flags or invoking the proper fsck_* binary directly, or implicitly, via fstab, than to run the risk of mis-guessing their intent. > The particular filesystem that wanted to check yesterday was most definitely > _not_ listed in my /etc/fstab file. But that was not an oversight. That was > by intent. > > Also and separately, please correct me if I am wrong, but aren't BSD style > partition labels going the way of the dinosaur, now that we have GPT > partitioning available? Not until GPT stops causing unintended consequences with older machines and poorly implemented firmwares. -- Fuzzy love, -CyberLeo Technical Administrator CyberLeo.Net Webhosting http://www.CyberLeo.Net Furry Peace! - http://www.fur.com/peace/