Traditionally, fsck is invoked before the filesystems are mounted
and all checks are done to completion at that time. If background
checking is available, fsck is invoked twice. It is first invoked
at the traditional time, before the filesystems are mounted, with
the -F flag to do checking on all the filesystems that cannot do
background checking. It is then invoked a second time, after the
system has completed going multiuser, with the -B flag to do checking
on all the filesystems that can do background checking. Unlike
the foreground checking, the background checking is started
asynchonously so that other system activity can proceed even on
the filesystems that are being checked.
At the moment, only the fast filesystem supports background checking.
To be able to do background checking, a filesystem must have been
running with soft updates, not have been marked as needing a
foreground check, and be mounted and writable when the background
check is to be done (i.e., not listed as `noauto' in /etc/fstab).
These changes are the final piece needed to support background
filesystem checking. They will not have any effect until you update
your /etc/rc to invoke fsck in its new mode of operation. I am
still playing around with exactly what those changes should be
and should be committing them later this week.
658667dbfa