diff --git a/rfc/Makefile b/rfc/Makefile
index e9440d3..b929099 100644
--- a/rfc/Makefile
+++ b/rfc/Makefile
@@ -8,7 +8,3 @@ link:
 
 genxr:
 	go run xr.go -- xr/dev $$(git rev-parse --short HEAD) $$(git log -1 --date=format:"%Y-%m-%d" --format="%ad") $$(git tag --sort=v:refname | tail -n1) ../*.go ../*/*.go
-
-check:
-	# output should be empty
-	-grep '	' index.txt  | grep -E -v '^[^	]+	[^	]+	[^	]+	[^	]+$$'
diff --git a/rfc/fetch.sh b/rfc/fetch.sh
index 3c7de97..851ca76 100755
--- a/rfc/fetch.sh
+++ b/rfc/fetch.sh
@@ -1,4 +1,13 @@
-#!/bin/sh
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+set -uo pipefail
+
+if grep '	' index.txt  | grep -E -v '^[^	 ]+	[^	 ]+	[^	 ]+	[^	]+$$'; then
+	echo 'bad lines in rfc/index.txt'
+	exit 1
+fi
+
+set -e
+
 for number in $(sed -n 's/^\([0-9][0-9]*\)[ \t].*$/\1/p' index.txt); do
 	if ! test -f "$number"; then
 		curl https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc$number.txt >$number || rm $number