Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 13:44:30 -0700
From: Chris Wedgwood <cw@f00f.org>
To: mike <mike@mike2k.com>
Cc: linux-xfs@oss.sgi.com
Subject: Re: Linux/XFS equivalents of defrag, chkdsk?
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On Sun, Aug 29, 2004 at 01:24:22PM -0700, mike wrote:

> Are there Linux equivalents for the XFS filesystem for chkdsk (fsck
> -n seemed like the only possibility and it does not work) or defrag?

yes and no

    xfs_repair can detect and repair damage for file-systems which are
    *not* in use

    xfs_fsr tries to reduce the fragmention of files

there are not really the sane and windows chkdsk or defrag though

> Perhaps the way XFS runs, defrag is useless/not required.

file fragmentation shouldn't be a big issue with the exception of a a
few applications / usage patterns (p2p applications are actually make
this hard but that's true for all filesystems pretty much)

> But it would be nice to be able to check filesystem consistency
> (while it's mounted, so it'd be read-only checking obviously)

can't really be done reliably, i guess you could snapshot, clone and
check the clone, but it's really a hack

> before something happens or while it's not in the process of booting
> the machine.

most people don't need to check the fs whilst it's mounted,
file-system problems shouldn't occur that often

if they are, something is wrong and it should be fixed


  --cw