How do I force ext3 partition to the "error" state?

I have a script where fsck is called in case filesystem is in "error" state only. I'd like to tests it. Unfortunatelly I don't know how to force "error" state on ext3 partition.

The only one idea I have is run fsck on mounted partition first. AS soon as there is warning that filesystem can be damaged, I expect it can help. Need to try. Meanwhile, may be anyone knows answer already?

Solution 1:

Well, here it is: debugfs -w -R "ssv state 2" /dev/sda1

debugfs is part of e2fsprogs package intended for low level access to ext2/3 filesystems.

-w - work in r/w;
-R - run one command and exit;
ssv - set superblock value, self-describing;
state - just a name of the field containing state of filesystem.

Codes are:

0 - not clean
1 - clean
2 - not clean with errors

Solution 2:

I fiddled with this briefly in a VM. My initial thought was to nuke the partition's primary superblock. Doing so does not cause dumpe2fs to report a "filesystem state" of "error" but it does (obviously) break your partition ("Bad magic number in super-block") ... so maybe that's all you need for your testing. Running fsck against a partition in this state and inspecting the value of $? will report a status of 8 (operational error).

Anyway, this is dangerous and I would not advise doing it on any system where you have data you care about. Try it in a VM like I did.

You can get some information about the file system like this:

dumpe2fs /dev/sda1 | egrep "state|superblock|Block size"

You will see that the filesystem has a primary superblock, and some number of backup superblocks. If you are prepared to break things, take note of a few things in that output:

• "Block size: X": take note of X
• "Primary superblock at Y": take note Y
• "Backup superblock at Z": take note of at least one Z

Now destroy your primary superblock:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1 bs=X count=1 seek=Y

Congratulations! Your filesystem is now broken.

Unmount it if it is mounted:

umount /dev/sda1

Then run fsck specifying the location of one of the backup superblocks noted earlier:

fsck -b Z /dev/sda1

Now mount /dev/sda1 somewhere, and you should be back in business.