[sysvinit-devel] [DIFF]: Proposal for remove the options -f, -F of shutdown

[Matias A. Fonzo]

Hi there,

According to the manpage of shutdown(8) a brief description says about 
the options -f, -F:

  The -f flag means `reboot fast'.  This only creates an advisory file 
/fastboot which can be tested by the system when it comes up again.  The 
boot rc file can test if  this  file
  is present, and decide not to run fsck(1) since the system has been 
shut down in the proper way.  After that, the boot process should remove 
/fastboot.

  The  -F  flag means `force fsck'.  This only creates an advisory file 
/forcefsck which can be tested by the system when it comes up again.  
The boot rc file can test if this file
  is present, and decide to run fsck(1) with a special `force' flag so 
that even properly unmounted file systems get checked.  After that, the 
boot process should  remove  /forcefsck.

IMHO, this seems unsafe and unnecessary. Unsafe in the sense that 
`shutdown' -f or -F will try to create a file in / (or where it is 
defined, paths.h) -- the creation of the file can fail if the file 
system is in read-only mode; this can be done simply in the 
initialization script if the scripts checks the boot prompt line, to see 
if the user has passed: "fastboot", "forcefsck" via /proc/cmdline. This 
avoids the following: 1. Additional lines: remove the files (generally 
at the end) on the initialization script - 2. Code in shutdown. (I 
attach a diff just in case).

shutdown-nofFoptions.diff
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