fsck -y (or fsck yes…)

Tip for the day:

Edit /etc/default/rcS on Debian/Ubuntu servers, and set FSCKFIX=yes (default of no) so next time your server runs fsck at startup, and spends hours doing it to only moan when it finds an error, and tells you to waste more time by running fsck with ‘-y’ (to fix it).

Quite why fsck even asks me to say ‘yes’ to it’s “do you want to fix…?” questions is another matter. It really annoys me – it’s not like I have enough information to make any sort of informed choice – it’s not like I know the structure that’s present on the disk, in order to say “No! You’re wrong FSCK, inode xxxxx should be blahblahblah”. I can only say ‘yes’.

If only FSCKFIX=yes was the default setting….. I can’t imagine Windows or OSX ever asking someone to answer such questions.