Re: Seeing progross during fsck on boot

[David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk>]

On Thu 01 Sep 2022 at 22:51:44 (+0100), Mike wrote:
> It's a server, so runs 24x7 but every few months or so falls on its
> arse.  Periodically it wants to fsck the disks, either because they've
> gone 20 mounts or so without a fsck or more often because they've gone
> however many days it is without a fsck.
> 
> This I can live with.  I can even live with the fact that with several
> TB file systems and quite a few files, the processs takes around fuor
> hours.  I'd just be nice to have some progress reported.  While it
> managed to spit details of any file system errors that have been found
> and corrected, other than that it sits there utterly silent.  For hours.
> I can see that it's doing something as 1) it's expected behaviour and 2)
> I can see the disk light solid on.  Nevertheless, it would be nice to
> see the progress bar indicting how it was getting along.

You don't say which filesystem format you're using. The native
formats, ext2–4, can give you a progress bar with the -C option,
but only if filesystems are checked one at a time. With:

  # fsck -f -n -C /dev/sdz4

I get progress bars on the first two passes, but the other three
flash by too quickly to make a judgment (29GB partition on a caddy).

I haven't delved into -C's optional argument because I'm using
an ordinary xterm.

Cheers,
David.