Superblock

The superblock stores summary information, which is the most commonly corrupted item in a UFS file system. Each change to the file system inodes or data blocks also modifies the superblock. If the CPU is halted and the last command is not a sync command, the superblock will almost certainly be corrupted.

The superblock is checked for inconsistencies in:

• File system size

• Number of inodes

• Free-block count

• Free-inode count

File System and Inode List Size

The file system size must be larger than the number of blocks used by the superblock and the number of blocks used by the list of inodes. The number of inodes must be less than the maximum number allowed for the file system. The file system size and layout information are the most critical pieces of information for fsck. Although there is no way to actually check these sizes, because they are statically determined when the file system is created, fsck can check that the sizes are within reasonable bounds. All other file system checks require that these sizes be correct. If fsck detects corruption in the static parameters of the primary superblock, it requests the operator to specify the location of an alternate superblock.

Free Blocks

Free blocks are stored in the cylinder group block maps. fsck checks that all the blocks marked as free are not claimed by any files. When all the blocks have been accounted for, fsck checks to see if the number of free blocks plus the number of blocks claimed by the inodes equal the total number of blocks in the file system. If anything is wrong with the block allocation maps, fsck rebuilds them, leaving out blocks already allocated.

The summary information in the superblock contains a count of the total number of free blocks within the file system. The fsck program compares this count to the number of free blocks it finds within the file system. If the counts do not agree, fsck replaces the count in the superblock with the actual free-block count.

Free Inodes

The summary information in the superblock contains a count of the free inodes within the file system. The fsck program compares this count to the number of free inodes it finds within the file system. If the counts do not agree, fsck replaces the count in the superblock with the actual free inode count.