Possible bug in mkfs.ext3

Theodore Ts'o
Sat, 20 Sep 2014 18:14:32 -0000

On Fri, Sep 19, 2014 at 07:56:37PM -0600, jd1008 wrote:
> I am reporting this on the advice of the Fedora Users Mailing List Member.
>
> This the mailing list exchange outlining the problem with specifying -S to
> mkfs,
> and it's subsequent consequences when fsck is run.

If none of the possible superblocks are valid when using mke2fs -b
<NNN>, there's a good chance that your partition table (or LVM
metadata) has gotten corrupted.  You should definitely check to make
sure the partition setup is sane before trying to use mke2fs -S.

It's also true, as Andreas has stated, that with the large number of
new file system options and layouts with ext4, mke2fs -S is much more
hazardous unless you __really__ know what you are doing.  It would
probably be a good idea to have some warning messages to that effect
in the man page.

						- Ted