Commit | Line | Data |
---|---|---|
1da177e4 LT |
1 | |
2 | Ext3 Filesystem | |
3 | =============== | |
4 | ||
c63ca3c8 JJ |
5 | Ext3 was originally released in September 1999. Written by Stephen Tweedie |
6 | for the 2.2 branch, and ported to 2.4 kernels by Peter Braam, Andreas Dilger, | |
1da177e4 LT |
7 | Andrew Morton, Alexander Viro, Ted Ts'o and Stephen Tweedie. |
8 | ||
c63ca3c8 | 9 | Ext3 is the ext2 filesystem enhanced with journalling capabilities. |
1da177e4 LT |
10 | |
11 | Options | |
12 | ======= | |
13 | ||
14 | When mounting an ext3 filesystem, the following option are accepted: | |
15 | (*) == default | |
16 | ||
e3375ac7 PM |
17 | ro Mount filesystem read only. Note that ext3 will replay |
18 | the journal (and thus write to the partition) even when | |
19 | mounted "read only". Mount options "ro,noload" can be | |
20 | used to prevent writes to the filesystem. | |
21 | ||
c63ca3c8 JJ |
22 | journal=update Update the ext3 file system's journal to the current |
23 | format. | |
1da177e4 | 24 | |
c63ca3c8 JJ |
25 | journal=inum When a journal already exists, this option is ignored. |
26 | Otherwise, it specifies the number of the inode which | |
27 | will represent the ext3 file system's journal file. | |
1da177e4 | 28 | |
cf7eff46 | 29 | journal_path=path |
71b96257 | 30 | journal_dev=devnum When the external journal device's major/minor numbers |
cf7eff46 | 31 | have changed, these options allow the user to specify |
c63ca3c8 | 32 | the new journal location. The journal device is |
cf7eff46 ES |
33 | identified through either its new major/minor numbers |
34 | encoded in devnum, or via a path to the device. | |
71b96257 | 35 | |
dee1d3b6 ES |
36 | norecovery Don't load the journal on mounting. Note that this forces |
37 | noload mount of inconsistent filesystem, which can lead to | |
e3375ac7 | 38 | various problems. |
1da177e4 | 39 | |
c63ca3c8 JJ |
40 | data=journal All data are committed into the journal prior to being |
41 | written into the main file system. | |
1da177e4 LT |
42 | |
43 | data=ordered (*) All data are forced directly out to the main file | |
c63ca3c8 JJ |
44 | system prior to its metadata being committed to the |
45 | journal. | |
1da177e4 | 46 | |
c63ca3c8 JJ |
47 | data=writeback Data ordering is not preserved, data may be written |
48 | into the main file system after its metadata has been | |
49 | committed to the journal. | |
1da177e4 LT |
50 | |
51 | commit=nrsec (*) Ext3 can be told to sync all its data and metadata | |
52 | every 'nrsec' seconds. The default value is 5 seconds. | |
c63ca3c8 JJ |
53 | This means that if you lose your power, you will lose |
54 | as much as the latest 5 seconds of work (your | |
55 | filesystem will not be damaged though, thanks to the | |
56 | journaling). This default value (or any low value) | |
57 | will hurt performance, but it's good for data-safety. | |
58 | Setting it to 0 will have the same effect as leaving | |
59 | it at the default (5 seconds). | |
1da177e4 LT |
60 | Setting it to very large values will improve |
61 | performance. | |
62 | ||
ee65244b SH |
63 | barrier=<0|1(*)> This enables/disables the use of write barriers in |
64 | barrier (*) the jbd code. barrier=0 disables, barrier=1 enables. | |
65 | nobarrier This also requires an IO stack which can support | |
0636c73e ES |
66 | barriers, and if jbd gets an error on a barrier |
67 | write, it will disable again with a warning. | |
68 | Write barriers enforce proper on-disk ordering | |
69 | of journal commits, making volatile disk write caches | |
70 | safe to use, at some performance penalty. If | |
71 | your disks are battery-backed in one way or another, | |
72 | disabling barriers may safely improve performance. | |
73 | The mount options "barrier" and "nobarrier" can | |
74 | also be used to enable or disable barriers, for | |
75 | consistency with other ext3 mount options. | |
1da177e4 | 76 | |
c63ca3c8 JJ |
77 | user_xattr Enables Extended User Attributes. Additionally, you |
78 | need to have extended attribute support enabled in the | |
79 | kernel configuration (CONFIG_EXT3_FS_XATTR). See the | |
80 | attr(5) manual page and http://acl.bestbits.at/ to | |
81 | learn more about extended attributes. | |
85b87242 AG |
82 | |
83 | nouser_xattr Disables Extended User Attributes. | |
84 | ||
c63ca3c8 JJ |
85 | acl Enables POSIX Access Control Lists support. |
86 | Additionally, you need to have ACL support enabled in | |
87 | the kernel configuration (CONFIG_EXT3_FS_POSIX_ACL). | |
88 | See the acl(5) manual page and http://acl.bestbits.at/ | |
89 | for more information. | |
1da177e4 | 90 | |
c63ca3c8 JJ |
91 | noacl This option disables POSIX Access Control List |
92 | support. | |
1da177e4 LT |
93 | |
94 | reservation | |
95 | ||
96 | noreservation | |
97 | ||
1da177e4 LT |
98 | bsddf (*) Make 'df' act like BSD. |
99 | minixdf Make 'df' act like Minix. | |
100 | ||
101 | check=none Don't do extra checking of bitmaps on mount. | |
c63ca3c8 | 102 | nocheck |
1da177e4 LT |
103 | |
104 | debug Extra debugging information is sent to syslog. | |
105 | ||
e3375ac7 | 106 | errors=remount-ro Remount the filesystem read-only on an error. |
1da177e4 LT |
107 | errors=continue Keep going on a filesystem error. |
108 | errors=panic Panic and halt the machine if an error occurs. | |
e3375ac7 PM |
109 | (These mount options override the errors behavior |
110 | specified in the superblock, which can be | |
111 | configured using tune2fs.) | |
1da177e4 | 112 | |
0e4fb5e2 HK |
113 | data_err=ignore(*) Just print an error message if an error occurs |
114 | in a file data buffer in ordered mode. | |
115 | data_err=abort Abort the journal if an error occurs in a file | |
116 | data buffer in ordered mode. | |
117 | ||
1da177e4 | 118 | grpid Give objects the same group ID as their creator. |
c63ca3c8 | 119 | bsdgroups |
1da177e4 LT |
120 | |
121 | nogrpid (*) New objects have the group ID of their creator. | |
122 | sysvgroups | |
123 | ||
124 | resgid=n The group ID which may use the reserved blocks. | |
125 | ||
126 | resuid=n The user ID which may use the reserved blocks. | |
127 | ||
128 | sb=n Use alternate superblock at this location. | |
129 | ||
6dbce521 JK |
130 | quota These options are ignored by the filesystem. They |
131 | noquota are used only by quota tools to recognize volumes | |
132 | grpquota where quota should be turned on. See documentation | |
133 | usrquota in the quota-tools package for more details | |
134 | (http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxquota). | |
135 | ||
136 | jqfmt=<quota type> These options tell filesystem details about quota | |
137 | usrjquota=<file> so that quota information can be properly updated | |
138 | grpjquota=<file> during journal replay. They replace the above | |
139 | quota options. See documentation in the quota-tools | |
140 | package for more details | |
141 | (http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxquota). | |
1da177e4 | 142 | |
1da177e4 LT |
143 | Specification |
144 | ============= | |
c63ca3c8 JJ |
145 | Ext3 shares all disk implementation with the ext2 filesystem, and adds |
146 | transactions capabilities to ext2. Journaling is done by the Journaling Block | |
147 | Device layer. | |
1da177e4 LT |
148 | |
149 | Journaling Block Device layer | |
150 | ----------------------------- | |
7356337b SZ |
151 | The Journaling Block Device layer (JBD) isn't ext3 specific. It was designed |
152 | to add journaling capabilities to a block device. The ext3 filesystem code | |
153 | will inform the JBD of modifications it is performing (called a transaction). | |
154 | The journal supports the transactions start and stop, and in case of a crash, | |
155 | the journal can replay the transactions to quickly put the partition back into | |
156 | a consistent state. | |
1da177e4 | 157 | |
c63ca3c8 JJ |
158 | Handles represent a single atomic update to a filesystem. JBD can handle an |
159 | external journal on a block device. | |
1da177e4 LT |
160 | |
161 | Data Mode | |
162 | --------- | |
c63ca3c8 | 163 | There are 3 different data modes: |
1da177e4 LT |
164 | |
165 | * writeback mode | |
c63ca3c8 JJ |
166 | In data=writeback mode, ext3 does not journal data at all. This mode provides |
167 | a similar level of journaling as that of XFS, JFS, and ReiserFS in its default | |
168 | mode - metadata journaling. A crash+recovery can cause incorrect data to | |
169 | appear in files which were written shortly before the crash. This mode will | |
170 | typically provide the best ext3 performance. | |
1da177e4 LT |
171 | |
172 | * ordered mode | |
c63ca3c8 JJ |
173 | In data=ordered mode, ext3 only officially journals metadata, but it logically |
174 | groups metadata and data blocks into a single unit called a transaction. When | |
175 | it's time to write the new metadata out to disk, the associated data blocks | |
176 | are written first. In general, this mode performs slightly slower than | |
177 | writeback but significantly faster than journal mode. | |
1da177e4 LT |
178 | |
179 | * journal mode | |
c63ca3c8 JJ |
180 | data=journal mode provides full data and metadata journaling. All new data is |
181 | written to the journal first, and then to its final location. | |
182 | In the event of a crash, the journal can be replayed, bringing both data and | |
183 | metadata into a consistent state. This mode is the slowest except when data | |
184 | needs to be read from and written to disk at the same time where it | |
7356337b | 185 | outperforms all other modes. |
1da177e4 LT |
186 | |
187 | Compatibility | |
188 | ------------- | |
189 | ||
190 | Ext2 partitions can be easily convert to ext3, with `tune2fs -j <dev>`. | |
c63ca3c8 JJ |
191 | Ext3 is fully compatible with Ext2. Ext3 partitions can easily be mounted as |
192 | Ext2. | |
193 | ||
1da177e4 LT |
194 | |
195 | External Tools | |
196 | ============== | |
c63ca3c8 JJ |
197 | See manual pages to learn more. |
198 | ||
199 | tune2fs: create a ext3 journal on a ext2 partition with the -j flag. | |
200 | mke2fs: create a ext3 partition with the -j flag. | |
201 | debugfs: ext2 and ext3 file system debugger. | |
e56d5ae3 | 202 | ext2online: online (mounted) ext2 and ext3 filesystem resizer |
1da177e4 | 203 | |
1da177e4 LT |
204 | |
205 | References | |
206 | ========== | |
207 | ||
c63ca3c8 JJ |
208 | kernel source: <file:fs/ext3/> |
209 | <file:fs/jbd/> | |
1da177e4 | 210 | |
c63ca3c8 | 211 | programs: http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/ |
e56d5ae3 | 212 | http://ext2resize.sourceforge.net |
1da177e4 | 213 | |
2b76aa07 WSH |
214 | useful links: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-fs7/index.html |
215 | http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-fs8/index.html |