System Administration Guide: Advanced Administration

Initialization Phase fsck Messages

In the initialization phase, command-line syntax is checked. Before the file system check can be performed, fsck sets up tables and opens files.

The messages in this section relate to error conditions resulting from command-line options, memory requests, the opening of files, the status of files, file system size checks, and the creation of the scratch file. All such initialization errors terminate fsck when it is preening the file system.


Can't roll the log for device-name.

DISCARDING THE LOG MAY DISCARD PENDING TRANSACTIONS.
DISCARD THE LOG AND CONTINUE?
Cause

fsck was unable to flush the transaction log of a logging UFS file system prior to checking the file system for errors.

Action

Answering yes means the file system operations that were in the log, but had not been applied to the file system, are lost. In this case, fsck runs the same checks it always runs and asks the following question in phase 5:


FREE BLK COUNT(S) WRONG IN SUPERBLK (SALVAGE)

Answering yes at this point reclaims the blocks that were used for the log. The next time the file system is mounted with logging enabled, the log will be recreated.

Answering no preserves the log and exits, but the file system isn't mountable.


bad inode number inode-number to ginode
Cause

An internal error occurred because of a nonexistent inode inode-number. fsck exits.

Action

Contact your local service provider or another qualified person.


cannot alloc size-of-block map bytes for blockmap
cannot alloc size-of-free map bytes for freemap
cannot alloc size-of-state map bytes for statemap
cannot alloc size-of-lncntp bytes for lncntp
Cause

Request for memory for its internal tables failed. fsck terminates. This message indicates a serious system failure that should be handled immediately. This condition might occur if other processes are using a very large amount of system resources.

Action

Killing other processes might solve the problem. If not, contact your local service provider or another qualified person.


Can't open checklist file: filename
Cause

The file system checklist file filename (usually /etc/vfstab) cannot be opened for reading. fsck terminates.

Action

Check if the file exists and if its access modes permit read access.


Can't open filename
Cause

fsck cannot open file system filename. When running interactively, fsck ignores this file system and continues checking the next file system given.

Action

Check to see if read and write access to the raw device file for the file system is permitted.


Can't stat root
Cause

fsck request for statistics about the root directory failed. fsck terminates.

Action

This message indicates a serious system failure. Contact your local service provider or another qualified person.


Can't stat filename
Can't make sense out of name filename
Cause

fsck request for statistics about the file system filename failed. When running interactively, fsck ignores this file system and continues checking the next file system given.

Action

Check if the file system exists and check its access modes.


filename: (NO WRITE)
Cause

Either the -n option was specified or fsck could not open the file system filename for writing. When fsck is running in no-write mode, all diagnostic messages are displayed, but fsck does not attempt to fix anything.

Action

If -n was not specified, check the type of the file specified. It might be the name of a regular file.


IMPOSSIBLE MINFREE=percent IN SUPERBLOCK (SET TO DEFAULT)
Cause

The superblock minimum space percentage is greater than 99 percent or less than 0 percent.

Action

To set the minfree parameter to the default 10 percent, type y at the default prompt. To ignore the error condition, type n at the default prompt.


filename: BAD SUPER BLOCK: message
USE AN ALTERNATE SUPER-BLOCK TO SUPPLY NEEDED INFORMATION;
e.g., fsck[-f ufs] -o b=# [special ...]
where # is the alternate superblock.  See fsck_ufs(1M)
Cause

The superblock has been corrupted.

Action

One of the following messages might be displayed:


CPG OUT OF RANGE
FRAGS PER BLOCK OR FRAGSIZE WRONG
INODES PER GROUP OUT OF RANGE
INOPB NONSENSICAL RELATIVE TO BSIZE 
MAGIC NUMBER WRONG 
NCG OUT OF RANGE 
NCYL IS INCONSISTENT WITH NCG*CPG 
NUMBER OF DATA BLOCKS OUT OF RANGE
NUMBER OF DIRECTORIES OUT OF RANGE
ROTATIONAL POSITION TABLE SIZE OUT OF RANGE
SIZE OF CYLINDER GROUP SUMMARY AREA WRONG
SIZE TOO LARGE 
BAD VALUES IN SUPERBLOCK

Try to rerun fsck with an alternative superblock. Specifying block 32 is a good first choice. You can locate an alternative copy of the superblock by running the newfs -N command on the slice. Be sure to specify the -N option; otherwise, newfs overwrites the existing file system.


UNDEFINED OPTIMIZATION IN SUPERBLOCK (SET TO DEFAULT)
Cause

The superblock optimization parameter is neither OPT_TIME nor OPT_SPACE.

Action

To minimize the time to perform operations on the file system, type y at the SET TO DEFAULT prompt. To ignore this error condition, type n.