Linux lost and found

What is the purpose of the lost+found folder in Linux and Unix

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The lost+found Directory in Linux and UNIX

The Linux fsck system utility is directly associated with the lost+found directory construct. Executing the fsck system utility will initiate a filesystem check and repair routine.

The result of using the fsck system utility might lead to the retrieval of data fragments, not ‘registered/referenced’ by the Linux filesystem.

For instance, fsck tends to highlight data that resembles a complete file but missing a name record on the Linux system. Therefore, such nameless data tend to use up system memory and remain mysterious since there are no conventional means of accessing it.

This article is here to unravel the mysteries behind the lost+found directory and its association with the Linux fsck utility.

The lost+found Directory and the fsck Command

According to its manual page, the fsck system utility is primarily used to check and repair a questionable filesystem on a Linux operating system environment. One of its roles is to find almost-deleted files and transform them into recognizable files.

We could say that it deals with files whose name and location entries are no longer valid. So once the fsck utility retrieves such files, its go-to location for their immediate storage is the lost+found directory.

We could therefore characterize files existing in the lost+found directory as unlinked (since they have no name and location) yet being used by a system process (probably due to power failure or kernel panic) after a sudden system halt. The Linux system attributes data stored in the lost+found directory as obsolete.

The fsck utility is responsible for the creation of this lost+found directory at the root level of the Extended File System volume (Whether it’s a single volume or a volume partition).

Therefore, on the root level of each of your Linux volume partitions, a lost+found directory exists.

Understanding lost+found Directory in Linux

Consider the instance where a process has access to a file and another process ends up deleting the file before it is released by the other process. The existence of this file is classified as a data fragment since its name and location entries no longer exist.

The fsck utility then repossesses this fragmented data and transforms it into a new file before moving it to the lost+found directory.

Now, whenever a software bug or hardware issue occurs and damages the Linux filesystem, running the fsck utility retrieves the assumed-deleted files that are now under a new identity in the lost+found directory.

The data on these lost+found directory files are then retrieved and used as a prognosis for the damaged Linux filesystem problem.

Creating lost+found Directory in Linux

For some reason (before coming across this article) you might have found the existence of the lost+found directory questionable and decided to delete it. It is not recommended to use the mkdir command to recreate this directory.

Instead, execute the mklost+found command:

Run the mklost+found command on the root level of your Linux partition since it automatically preallocates the fsck utility some space instead of this utility (fsck) allocating itself the needed data blocks during data recovery and leading to data corruption.

Recovering lost+found Directory Data

The first step is to identify the partition that has issues e.g /dev/sdb4. You could use the lsblk command to identify the partition label.

The next step is to unmount the partition or make sure it is unmounted.

Execute the fsck command as root or sudoer user:

Create a mounting point and mount the partition:

$ sudo mkdir -p /mnt/new $ sudo mount /dev/sdb4 /mnt/new

Switch to the mounted directory:

You should be able to see the lost+found directory.

If your filesystem had issues, then recoverable data should be found here.

If you need to get rid of the lost+found directory data that you no longer need on all active partitions on your system, execute the following find command:

$ find "-iname" lost+found -type d -exec rm -r "<>" \;

We now know everything there is to know about the Linux lost+found directory. Your comments and feedback will be appreciated.

Источник

The lost+found Directory in Linux and UNIX

The Linux fsck system utility is directly associated with the lost+found directory construct. Executing the fsck system utility will initiate a filesystem check and repair routine.

The result of using the fsck system utility might lead to the retrieval of data fragments, not ‘registered/referenced’ by the Linux filesystem.

For instance, fsck tends to highlight data that resembles a complete file but missing a name record on the Linux system. Therefore, such nameless data tend to use up system memory and remain mysterious since there are no conventional means of accessing it.

This article is here to unravel the mysteries behind the lost+found directory and its association with the Linux fsck utility.

The lost+found Directory and the fsck Command

According to its manual page, the fsck system utility is primarily used to check and repair a questionable filesystem on a Linux operating system environment. One of its roles is to find almost-deleted files and transform them into recognizable files.

We could say that it deals with files whose name and location entries are no longer valid. So once the fsck utility retrieves such files, its go-to location for their immediate storage is the lost+found directory.

We could therefore characterize files existing in the lost+found directory as unlinked (since they have no name and location) yet being used by a system process (probably due to power failure or kernel panic) after a sudden system halt. The Linux system attributes data stored in the lost+found directory as obsolete.

The fsck utility is responsible for the creation of this lost+found directory at the root level of the Extended File System volume (Whether it’s a single volume or a volume partition).

Therefore, on the root level of each of your Linux volume partitions, a lost+found directory exists.

Understanding lost+found Directory in Linux

Consider the instance where a process has access to a file and another process ends up deleting the file before it is released by the other process. The existence of this file is classified as a data fragment since its name and location entries no longer exist.

The fsck utility then repossesses this fragmented data and transforms it into a new file before moving it to the lost+found directory.

Now, whenever a software bug or hardware issue occurs and damages the Linux filesystem, running the fsck utility retrieves the assumed-deleted files that are now under a new identity in the lost+found directory.

The data on these lost+found directory files are then retrieved and used as a prognosis for the damaged Linux filesystem problem.

Creating lost+found Directory in Linux

For some reason (before coming across this article) you might have found the existence of the lost+found directory questionable and decided to delete it. It is not recommended to use the mkdir command to recreate this directory.

Instead, execute the mklost+found command:

Run the mklost+found command on the root level of your Linux partition since it automatically preallocates the fsck utility some space instead of this utility (fsck) allocating itself the needed data blocks during data recovery and leading to data corruption.

Recovering lost+found Directory Data

The first step is to identify the partition that has issues e.g /dev/sdb4. You could use the lsblk command to identify the partition label.

The next step is to unmount the partition or make sure it is unmounted.

Execute the fsck command as root or sudoer user:

Create a mounting point and mount the partition:

$ sudo mkdir -p /mnt/new $ sudo mount /dev/sdb4 /mnt/new

Switch to the mounted directory:

You should be able to see the lost+found directory.

If your filesystem had issues, then recoverable data should be found here.

If you need to get rid of the lost+found directory data that you no longer need on all active partitions on your system, execute the following find command:

$ find "-iname" lost+found -type d -exec rm -r "<>" \;

We now know everything there is to know about the Linux lost+found directory. Your comments and feedback will be appreciated.

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Linux for freshers

This is an important directory which is useful for recovering files which are not properly closed due to many reason such as power failure. Lost+Found is created by system at the time of Linux OS installation for each partition we create. In other words we can say the mounted folder contains this lost+found folder. This folder contains the files with no links and files to be recovered. Any file to be recovered is kept in this folder. fsck command is used to recover these files .

If you run fsck , the filesystem check and repair command, it might find data fragments that are not referenced anywhere in the filesystem. In particular, fsck might find data that looks like a complete file but doesn’t have a name on the system — an inode with no corresponding file name. This data is still using up space, but it isn’t accessible by any normal means.

If you tell fsck to repair the filesystem, it will turn these almost-deleted files back into files. The thing is, the file had a name and location once, but that information is no longer available. So fsck deposits the file in a specific directory, called lost+found (after lost and found property).

Files that appear in lost+found are typically files that were already unlinked (i.e. their name had been erased) but still opened by some process (so the data wasn’t erased yet) when the system halted suddenly (kernel panic or power failure). If that’s all that happened, these files were slated for deletion anyway, you don’t need to care about them.

Files can also appear in lost+found because the filesystem was in an inconsistent state due to a software or hardware bug. If that’s the case, it’s a way for you to find files that were lost but that the system repair managed to salvage. The files may or may not contain useful data, and even if they do they may be incomplete or out of date; it all depends how bad the filesystem damage was.

On many filesystems, the lost+found directory is a bit special because it preallocates a bit of space for fsck to deposit files there. (The space isn’t for the file data, which fsck leaves in place; it’s for the directory entries which fsck has to make up.)

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