[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#432865: initscripts: Allow option to always fsck serially in checkfs.sh

[Ambrose Li]

Package: initscripts
Version: 2.86.ds1-38
Severity: normal


The checkfs.sh script currently does not use the -s option, so fsck will
try to check more than one filesystem at a time. Checkfs.sh also uses -C
to display a progress bar.

However, from fsck's manpage, fsck only displays one progress bar at a 
time even when two checkers are run.

This leads to the following possible scenario where fsck may appear to
be frozen while it is actively checking a filesystem:

- The system contains at least one very large partition.
- At startup time, fsck starts to check all partitions (say because the
  box had a very long uptime)
- fsck chose to run two checkers, one on a small partition and one on 
  the big partition
- fsck chose to display the progress bar on the small partition
- fsck finish checking the small partition and continues to check all
  the other smaller partitions
- fsck continues to check the large partition WITHOUT ANY PROGRESS BARS

If the large partition is so large that it takes, say, an hour to finish,
the machine will appear to be hung.

A better way is to use the -s option, or allow the system to be configured
in such a way that the -s option can be used. Then all checks will have a
progress bar and the machine will not appear to be hung when doing fsck's.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.16.2
Locale: LANG=zh_TW.Big5, LC_CTYPE=zh_TW.Big5 (charmap=BIG5)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages initscripts depends on:
ii  debianut 2.21.3                          Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii  e2fsprog 1.39+1.40-WIP-2007.04.07+dfsg-2 ext2 file system utilities and lib
hi  libc6    2.5-10                          GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  lsb-base 3.1-23.1                        Linux Standard Base 3.1 init scrip
ii  mount    2.12r-19                        Tools for mounting and manipulatin
ii  sysvinit 2.86.ds1-38                     System-V-like utilities

Versions of packages initscripts recommends:
ii  psmisc                        22.5-1     Utilities that use the proc filesy

-- no debconf information