Is there an FSDB Manual?

[Conor P. Cahill]

In article <82 at olsa99.UUCP>, mje at olsa99.UUCP (Mark J Elkins) writes:
> Is there a manual or paper on using 'fsdb'. The AT&T User Guide say's
> "Do not use - unless you know how too" and the Referance Manual only
> gives a few clues. It was suggested that 'fsdb' should be used to sort
> out the problem of two seemingly similar files in the same directory.
> I'd also like to know what else I can fix/scramble with fsdb.

WARNING: fsdb can be verrrrrrry dangerous in careless hands.

The biggest precursor to using fsdb is to have a basic understanding of the
underlying structure of the file system.  Next you should try to play 
with it on a file system that doesn't matter (such as a floppy disk file system)

Fsdb can be used to patch (or scramble) any part of the raw file system. 
In addition to fixing broken file names you can use fsdb to fix things
like the following:

	Multiple inodes referencing the same data blocks.

	The file type bits on a directory get messed up and it no longer
	appeares as a directory.  With a large directory this could be 
	a real pain when fsck puts all of the files into lost+found.  fsdb
	will let you patch the mode bits directly.

There are zillions of other things you could do (both good and bad) to
the file system with fsdb so be careful out there.

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