Bug#708000: initramfs-tools: fsck filesystems prior to mounting

[Roger Leigh <rleigh@debian.org>]

Package: initramfs-tools
Version: 0.112
Severity: normal

I'm opening this bug since there's a need to check the filesystems
prior to mounting them when mounting /usr in the initramfs.  Tools
like e2fsck refuse to fsck a read-only mounted /usr (/ is special-
cased) which means that doing this after we hand over to /sbin/init
is very hard.

Running fsck in the initramfs has several advantages:
- a reboot isn't necessary if any changes are made
- if there are problems, the user can run fsck on the rootfs
  in the rescue shell if needed
- any filesystem can be checked, including /usr

I'm unsure how much work would be required to achieve this
- can we enable the fsck wrapper in busybox and copy over any
  needed fs-specific fsck helpers?
- would these need rebuilding to avoid an additional library
  dependencies?
- do we copy all available helpers, or just those used by
  specific filesystems?


Regards,
Roger