Doing fsck on shutdown

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Tue, Nov 22, 2005 at 01:08:00PM +0200, Markus Peuhkuri wrote:
> I usually shutdown computer for night (could probaly use software
> shutdown, but have not yet studied it).  In that case, the disk is
> checked quite often with default settings, usually in those cases I am
> in hurry and want computer to start up fast :-).
> 
> One alternative would be trying to run fsck at shutdown if fsck is due
> in a few mounts.  One could abort that if one wants computer to shutdown
> fast, but in normal case one could just allow it and then computer would
> later shut ifself down.
> 
> Has anyone designed initscripts for that?

That's a good/interesting idea.  One suggestion; if you do this, make
sure you check to see if you are running on batteries; if you are,
it's likely that you might be in a situation such as a laptop on an
airplane and the airline attendant has just told you to shut down all
electronics in preparation for landing --- or the laptop has just
reported that you only have 3% battery life left, and please shut down
now.  

Sometimes doing a 3-5 minute FSCK run at shutdown isn't always the
right thing....

						- Ted