Manually set needs_recovery flag in ext4 filesystem to True

Question

I am trying to setup some unit tests for an application, and one thing I need is a 'dirty' ext4 filesystem that can be tested against. Is there a way I can manually set the 'needs_recovery' flag?

Answer 1

You can use tune2fs to alter the max-mount-counts and/or mount-count to suit your needs.

For example, setting max-mount-counts to 1 (issuing tune2fs -c 1 /dev/sdX) would cause a complete fsck to run each time you mount your filesystem.

For more information, read the man page:

-c max-mount-counts Adjust the number of mounts after which the filesystem will be checked by e2fsck(8). If max-mount-counts is 0 or -1, the number of times the filesystem is mounted will be disregarded by e2fsck(8) and the kernel. Staggering the mount-counts at which filesystems are forcibly checked will avoid all filesystems being checked at one time when using journaled filesystems.

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See also the -i option for time-dependent checking.

-C mount-count Set the number of times the filesystem has been mounted. If set to a greater value than the max-mount-counts parameter set by the -c option, e2fsck(8) will check the filesystem at the next reboot.