Provided by: e2fsprogs_1.42.13-1ubuntu1.2_amd64 bug

NAME

       e2fsck.conf - Configuration file for e2fsck

DESCRIPTION

       e2fsck.conf is the configuration file for e2fsck(8).  It controls the default behavior of e2fsck(8) while
       it is checking ext2, ext3, or ext4 filesystems.

       The e2fsck.conf file uses an INI-style format.  Stanzas, or top-level sections, are delimited  by  square
       braces:  [  ].   Within each section, each line defines a relation, which assigns tags to values, or to a
       subsection, which contains further relations or subsections.  An example of the INI-style format used  by
       this configuration file follows below:

            [section1]
                 tag1 = value_a
                 tag1 = value_b
                 tag2 = value_c

            [section 2]
                 tag3 = {
                      subtag1 = subtag_value_a
                      subtag1 = subtag_value_b
                      subtag2 = subtag_value_c
                 }
                 tag1 = value_d
                 tag2 = value_e
            }

       Comments  are  delimited  by a semicolon (';') or a hash ('#') character at the beginning of the comment,
       and are terminated by the end of line character.

       Tags and values must be quoted using double quotes if they contain spaces.  Within a quoted  string,  the
       standard backslash interpretations apply: "\n" (for the newline character), "\t" (for the tab character),
       "\b" (for the backspace character), and "\\" (for the backslash character).

       The following stanzas are used in the e2fsck.conf file.  They will be described in more detail in  future
       sections of this document.

       [options]
              This stanza contains general configuration parameters for e2fsck's behavior.

       [problems]
              This  stanza  allows  the  administrator  to  reconfigure  how  e2fsck  handles various filesystem
              inconsistencies.

       [scratch_files]
              This stanza controls when e2fsck will attempt to use scratch files to reduce the need for memory.

THE [options] STANZA

       The following relations are defined in the [options] stanza.

       allow_cancellation
              If this relation is set to a boolean value of true, then if the user interrupts e2fsck  using  ^C,
              and  the  filesystem is not explicitly flagged as containing errors, e2fsck will exit with an exit
              status of 0 instead of 32.  This setting defaults to false.

       accept_time_fudge
              Unfortunately, due to Windows' unfortunate design decision to configure the hardware clock to tick
              localtime,  instead  of  the  more  proper and less error-prone UTC time, many users end up in the
              situation where the system clock is incorrectly set at the time when e2fsck is run.

              Historically this was  usually  due  to  some  distributions  having  buggy  init  scripts  and/or
              installers   that  didn't  correctly  detect  this  case  and  take  appropriate  countermeasures.
              Unfortunately, this is occasionally true even today, usually  due  to  a  buggy  or  misconfigured
              virtualization  manager  or  the  installer  not having access to a network time server during the
              installation process.  So by default, we allow the superblock times to  be  fudged  by  up  to  24
              hours.   This  can  be  disabled by setting accept_time_fudge to the boolean value of false.  This
              setting defaults to true.

       broken_system_clock
              The e2fsck(8) program has some heuristics that assume  that  the  system  clock  is  correct.   In
              addition, many system programs make similar assumptions.  For example, the UUID library depends on
              time not going backwards in order for  it  to  be  able  to  make  its  guarantees  about  issuing
              universally  unique  ID's.   Systems with broken system clocks, are well, broken.  However, broken
              system clocks, particularly in embedded systems, do exist.  E2fsck will attempt to use  heuristics
              to  determine  if  the time can not be trusted; and to skip time-based checks if this is true.  If
              this boolean is set to true, then e2fsck will always assume that  the  system  clock  can  not  be
              trusted.

       buggy_init_scripts
              This boolean relation is an alias for accept_time_fudge for backwards compatibility; it used to be
              that the behavior defined by accept_time_fudge above defaulted to  false,  and  buggy_init_scripts
              would enable superblock time field to be wrong by up to 24 hours.  When we changed the default, we
              also renamed this boolean relation to accept_time_fudge.

       clear_test_fs_flag
              This boolean relation controls whether or not e2fsck(8) will offer to clear the  test_fs  flag  if
              the ext4 filesystem is available on the system.  It defaults to true.

       defer_check_on_battery
              This boolean relation controls whether or not the interval between filesystem checks (either based
              on time or number of mounts) should be doubled if the system is running on battery.  This  setting
              defaults to true.

       indexed_dir_slack_percentage
              When  e2fsck(8)  repacks  a  indexed directory, reserve the specified percentage of empty space in
              each leaf nodes so that a few new entries can be added to the  directory  without  splitting  leaf
              nodes, so that the average fill ratio of directories can be maintained at a higher, more efficient
              level.  This relation defaults to 20 percent.

       log_dir
              If the log_filename relation contains a relative pathname, then the log file will be placed in the
              directory named by the log_dir relation.

       log_dir_fallback
              This  relation  contains  an  alternate  directory that will be used if the directory specified by
              log_dir is not available or is not writeable.

       log_dir_wait
              If this boolean relation is true, them if the directories specified by log_dir or log_dir_fallback
              are  not available or are not yet writeable, e2fsck will save the output in a memory buffer, and a
              child process will periodically test to see if the log directory has become  available  after  the
              boot  sequence  has  mounted  the  requiste  filesytem  for  reading/writing.  This implements the
              functionality provided by logsave(8) for e2fsck log files.

       log_filename
              This relation specifies the file name where a copy  of  e2fsck's  output  will  be  written.    If
              certain problem reports are suppressed using the max_count_problems relation, (or on a per-problem
              basis using the max_count relation), the full set of problem reports will be written  to  the  log
              file.   The  filename  may  contain  various  percent-expressions (%D, %T, %N, etc.) which will be
              expanded so that the file name for the log file can include things like date, time,  device  name,
              and other run-time parameters.  See the LOGGING section for more details.

       max_count_problems
              This relation specifies the maximum number of problem reports of a particular type will be printed
              to stdout before further problem reports of that type are squelched.  This can be  useful  if  the
              console  is  slow  (i.e., connected to a serial port) and so a large amount of output could end up
              delaying the boot process for a long time (potentially hours).

       report_features
              If this boolean relation is true, e2fsck will print the  file  system  features  as  part  of  its
              verbose reporting (i.e., if the -v option is specified)

       report_time
              If  this  boolean  relation  is  true, e2fsck will run as if the options -tt are always specified.
              This will cause e2fsck to print timing statistics on a pass by pass basis  for  full  file  system
              checks.

       report_verbose
              If  this  boolean relation is true, e2fsck will run as if the option -v is always specified.  This
              will cause e2fsck to print some additional information at the end of each full file system check.

THE [problems] STANZA

       Each tag in the [problems] stanza names a problem code specified with a leading "0x" followed by six  hex
       digits.  The value of the tag is a subsection where the relations in that subsection override the default
       treatment of that particular problem code.

       Note that inappropriate settings in this stanza may cause e2fsck to behave incorrectly,  or  even  crash.
       Most system administrators should not be making changes to this section without referring to source code.

       Within each problem code's subsection, the following tags may be used:

       description
              This  relation  allows the message which is printed when this filesystem inconsistency is detected
              to be overridden.

       preen_ok
              This boolean relation overrides the default behavior controlling whether this  filesystem  problem
              should be automatically fixed when e2fsck is running in preen mode.

       max_count
              This  integer relation overrides the max_count_problems parameter (set in the options section) for
              this particular problem.

       no_ok  This boolean relation overrides the default behavior determining whether  or  not  the  filesystem
              will be marked as inconsistent if the user declines to fix the reported problem.

       no_default
              This  boolean  relation overrides whether the default answer for this problem (or question) should
              be "no".

       preen_nomessage
              This boolean relation overrides the default behavior controlling whether or  not  the  description
              for this filesystem problem should be suppressed when e2fsck is running in preen mode.

       no_nomsg
              This  boolean  relation  overrides the default behavior controlling whether or not the description
              for this filesystem problem should be suppressed when a problem forced not  to  be  fixed,  either
              because  e2fsck  is  run  with  the  -n  option  or because the force_no flag has been set for the
              problem.

       force_no
              This boolean option, if set to true, forces a problem to never be fixed.  That is, it will  be  as
              if  the  user  problem  responds  'no'  to  the  question of 'should this problem be fixed?'.  The
              force_no option even overrides the -y option given on the  command-line  (just  for  the  specific
              problem, of course).

THE [scratch_files] STANZA

       The following relations are defined in the [scratch_files] stanza.

       directory
              If  the  directory named by this relation exists and is writeable, then e2fsck will attempt to use
              this directory to store scratch files instead of using in-memory data structures.

       numdirs_threshold
              If this relation is set, then in-memory data structures be used if the number  of  directories  in
              the filesystem are fewer than amount specified.

       dirinfo
              This  relation  controls whether or not the scratch file directory is used instead of an in-memory
              data structure for directory information.  It defaults to true.

       icount This relation controls whether or not the scratch file directory is used instead of  an  in-memory
              data structure when tracking inode counts.  It defaults to true.

LOGGING

       E2fsck  has  the  facility  to  save  the  information from an e2fsck run in a directory so that a system
       administrator can review its output at their  leisure.   This  allows  information  captured  during  the
       automatic  e2fsck  preen  run, as well as a manually started e2fsck run, to be saved for posterity.  This
       facility is controlled by the log_filename, log_dir, log_dir_fallback, and log_dir_wait relations in  the
       [options] stanza.

       The  filename  in  log_filename  may  contain  the following percent-expressions that will be expanded as
       follows.

       %d     The current day of the month

       %D     The current date; this is a equivalent of %Y%m%d

       %h     The hostname of the system.

       %H     The current hour in 24-hour format (00..23)

       %m     The current month as a two-digit number (01..12)

       %M     The current minute (00..59)

       %N     The name of the block device containing the file system, with any directory pathname stripped off.

       %p     The pid of the e2fsck process

       %s     The current time expressed as the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC

       %S     The current second (00..59)

       %T     The current time; this is equivalent of %H%M%S

       %u     The name of the user running e2fsck.

       %U     This percent expression does not expand to anything, but it signals that  any  following  date  or
              time expressions should be expressed in UTC time instead of the local timzeone.

       %y     The last two digits of the current year (00..99)

       %Y     The current year (i.e., 2012).

EXAMPLES

       The following recipe will prevent e2fsck from aborting during the boot process when a filesystem contains
       orphaned files.  (Of course, this is not always a good idea, since critical files that are needed for the
       security  of  the  system  could  potentially end up in lost+found, and starting the system without first
       having a system administrator check things out may be dangerous.)

            [problems]
                 0x040002 = {
                      preen_ok = true
                      description = "@u @i %i.  "
                 }

       The following recipe will cause an e2fsck logfile to be written to the directory /var/log/e2fsck, with  a
       filename  that  contains  the device name, the hostname of the system, the date, and time: e.g., "e2fsck-
       sda3.server.INFO.20120314-112142".  If the directory containing /var/log is  located  on  the  root  file
       system which is initially mounted read-only, then the output will be saved in memory and written out once
       the root file system has been remounted read/write.   To avoid too much detail from being written to  the
       serial  console  (which  could  potentially  slow  down  the  boot  sequence), only print no more than 16
       instances of each type of file system corruption.

            [options]
                 max_count_problems = 16
                 log_dir = /var/log/e2fsck
                 log_filename = e2fsck-%N.%h.INFO.%D-%T
                 log_dir_wait = true

FILES

       /etc/e2fsck.conf
              The configuration file for e2fsck(8).

SEE ALSO

       e2fsck(8)