Find if file system is already created on the RAW device

g_johnsonsamuel · 07-16-2007, 11:37 AM

Hi

I use mkfs to create ext3 filesystem on the raw device. It a automated process using script, i dont want to create the filesystem (override) when running the script again.

I tried "fsck -n /dev/<device>" and can see the difference b/w the raw device and raw device with filesystem but dnot know how to code in the shell script.

Any suggestion is much appreciated.

thanks,

marozsas · 07-16-2007, 12:23 PM

I didn't check if there is a useful return code, but look for different return status on both scenarios.

Code:

# fsck -n /dev/device; echo "fsck returned $?"

marozsas · 07-16-2007, 01:48 PM

Better than using fsck to figure out what is the filesystem on a device, use the command file instead:

Code:

[root@agente86 nagios]# file -s /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1: Linux rev 1.0 ext3 filesystem data (needs journal recovery)