Forcing a Filesystem Check

The firewall will automatically run a filesystem check at boot time when it was not shut down cleanly. In such a case the disk is still “dirty” so the OS can tell that it needs a check. However there are times when the filesystem is marked clean but there may still be some minor filesystem corruption. This can manifest as files being inaccessible, incorrect free disk space reporting, or even a panic/crash in filesystem code. At these times running fsck on the filesystem is necessary but to do so properly requires that it be done during the boot cycle before the drives have been mounted read/write.

Fortunately there is a way to trigger a check manually when necessary by creating the file /root/force_fsck and then rebooting the firewall.

There are many ways to create the file, a few simple examples are:

From the GUI:

• Navigate to Diagnostics > Command

• Enter touch /root/force_fsck in the Execute Shell Command area

• Click Execute

From the shell (Full install):

touch /root/force_fsck

From the shell (NanoBSD):

/etc/rc.conf_mount_rw
touch /root/force_fsck
/etc/rc.conf_mount_ro

After creating the file, reboot. The firewall will run a filesystem check and then continue to boot the rest of the way. The /root/force_fsck file will be removed automatically.