Ext3 users - Sep 2003 - Fsck (presumably e2fsck) returns exit code 127 on an ext3 file sy stem

fsck (Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 2.1) returns an exit code 127 on an ext3
file system when run from a shellscript started by cron. Here is the
pertinent part of the script:
...
fsck -p /dev/${BK_SLICE} 1>/dev/null 2>&1
STATUS=$?
if [ ${STATUS} -ne "0" ]
   then
      echo "${MIR_PID}: file system check of /dev/${BK_SLICE} failed,
status
= ${STATUS}" >>${LOG}
...

This is the message that is logged:
25227: file system check of /dev/sdb3 failed, status = 127

According to the man page for fsck, the exit code should be "the sum of the
following conditions":
            0    - No errors
            1    - File system errors corrected
            2    - System should be rebooted
            4    - File system errors left uncorrected
            8    - Operational error
            16   - Usage or syntax error
            128  - Shared library error

The 127 seems illogical to me because there is nothing in the list for the
32 and 64 bits and it is unlikely that *all* of these errors should occur on
a single fsck.

When this happens, I re-run the shellscript manually and the fsck succeeds
with no problems.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

greg.steele@ncr.com

On Mon, 29 Sep 2003, Steele, Gregory F wrote:
> fsck (Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 2.1) returns an exit code 127 on an ext3
> file system when run from a shellscript started by cron. Here is the
> pertinent part of the script:
> fsck -p /dev/${BK_SLICE} 1>/dev/null 2>&1
<CLIP>
pehesaari-11:~$ fsck
bash: fsck: command not found
pehesaari-11:~$ echo $? 
127
</CLIP>

Value 127 is returned by /bin/sh when the given command is is not found
from PATH and it is not a builtin shell command. My guess is, that your
cron job is missing /sbin from its PATH:

<CLIP>
pehesaari-11:~$ /sbin/fsck
fsck 1.27 (8-Mar-2002)

No devices specified to be checked!
pehesaari-11:~$ echo $?
8
</CLIP>

- Jani