> So let me get this straight, If I want to check my file system for errors
> there is no problems, but if I want to fix any errors found I have to
> reboot via a boot disk, and then e2fsck the now unmounted drive ?
>
> If true (makes sense since it is a multitasking environment), then this is
> not so good for my internet gateway, which may have some corruption.
> But hey no use winging about it.
The problem with fsck'ing mounted fs'es is that you may check a non up to
date (but perfectly valid) filesystem so doing any kind of fsck on mounted
filesystems is bad in the first place.
If you want to fsck a filesystem without rebooting your machine you have 2
ways:
1) umount the partition and then fsck it (here you can have problems with
running processes that may have open files on the to-be-umounted fs.
2) remount the partition read-only and then fsck it.
The third option is to go single user (tipically runlevel 1) and fsck.
A fourth option can be to boot with a floppy and then fsck.
There are no other ways that come to mind to safely fsck a partition.
Ciao,
Riccardo.
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