FSCK.BTRFS(8)

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version 7.3 · 20 versions
, in arch rolling

💅 FSCK.BTRFS — it's a fsck.btrfs(8) situation, bestie

okay so first things first, this is a page from the BTRFS section 8 of the manual, and it's about a little utility called fsck.btrfs. and listen. the tea is that it does literally nothing. successfully. iconic behaviour, honestly. 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

fsck.btrfs — do nothing, successfully

yes bestie you read that right, that's the whole job 🌈

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

fsck.btrfs [-aApy] [<device>...]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so like, fsck.btrfs is the kind of utility that's just supposed to exist for any filesystem, periodt. it gets called during system setup when the matching /etc/fstab entries have a non-zero value for fs_passno. if you wanna know more about that, go check out fstab(5) over at <https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/fstab.5.html>. 🫶

like, traditional filesystems need to run their own respective fsck utility in case the filesystem wasn't unmounted cleanly and the log needs to be replayed before mount. BTRFS does not need this. you should set fs_passno to 0. that's it, that's the vibe. 💜

ngl if you're sitting there wanting to actually check the consistency of a BTRFS filesystem, or repair a damaged one, that's a whole different girl — go see btrfs-check(8). by default filesystem consistency is checked, and the repair mode gets enabled via the --repair option. (use with care!) seriously bestie, with care.

✨ OPTIONS ✨

the options are all the same, okay? all of them. what they do is detect if fsck.btrfs is being executed in non-interactive mode and then exits with success. otherwise it prints a message about btrfs check. that's the entire plot. no cap. 💀

✨ EXIT STATUS ✨

there are exactly two possible exit codes that get returned, so let's go:

  • 0 — No error ✨
  • 8 — Operational error, e.g. device does not exist 😭

✨ FILES ✨

  • /etc/fstab

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

okay and that's the whole page bestie, we ate and left no crumbs. 🍓 this was version 7.3, dated Oct 24, 2026 — love that for us. now go set your fs_passno to 0 and live your best life, mwah 💅💖🧚

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