Based on kernel version 3.9. Page generated on 2013-05-02 23:06 EST.
1 2 Ext3 Filesystem 3 =============== 4 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, 7 Andrew Morton, Alexander Viro, Ted Ts'o and Stephen Tweedie. 8 9 Ext3 is the ext2 filesystem enhanced with journalling capabilities. 10 11 Options 12 ======= 13 14 When mounting an ext3 filesystem, the following option are accepted: 15 (*) == default 16 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 22 journal=update Update the ext3 file system's journal to the current 23 format. 24 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. 28 29 journal_dev=devnum When the external journal device's major/minor numbers 30 have changed, this option allows the user to specify 31 the new journal location. The journal device is 32 identified through its new major/minor numbers encoded 33 in devnum. 34 35 norecovery Don't load the journal on mounting. Note that this forces 36 noload mount of inconsistent filesystem, which can lead to 37 various problems. 38 39 data=journal All data are committed into the journal prior to being 40 written into the main file system. 41 42 data=ordered (*) All data are forced directly out to the main file 43 system prior to its metadata being committed to the 44 journal. 45 46 data=writeback Data ordering is not preserved, data may be written 47 into the main file system after its metadata has been 48 committed to the journal. 49 50 commit=nrsec (*) Ext3 can be told to sync all its data and metadata 51 every 'nrsec' seconds. The default value is 5 seconds. 52 This means that if you lose your power, you will lose 53 as much as the latest 5 seconds of work (your 54 filesystem will not be damaged though, thanks to the 55 journaling). This default value (or any low value) 56 will hurt performance, but it's good for data-safety. 57 Setting it to 0 will have the same effect as leaving 58 it at the default (5 seconds). 59 Setting it to very large values will improve 60 performance. 61 62 barrier=<0|1(*)> This enables/disables the use of write barriers in 63 barrier (*) the jbd code. barrier=0 disables, barrier=1 enables. 64 nobarrier This also requires an IO stack which can support 65 barriers, and if jbd gets an error on a barrier 66 write, it will disable again with a warning. 67 Write barriers enforce proper on-disk ordering 68 of journal commits, making volatile disk write caches 69 safe to use, at some performance penalty. If 70 your disks are battery-backed in one way or another, 71 disabling barriers may safely improve performance. 72 The mount options "barrier" and "nobarrier" can 73 also be used to enable or disable barriers, for 74 consistency with other ext3 mount options. 75 76 user_xattr Enables Extended User Attributes. Additionally, you 77 need to have extended attribute support enabled in the 78 kernel configuration (CONFIG_EXT3_FS_XATTR). See the 79 attr(5) manual page and http://acl.bestbits.at/ to 80 learn more about extended attributes. 81 82 nouser_xattr Disables Extended User Attributes. 83 84 acl Enables POSIX Access Control Lists support. 85 Additionally, you need to have ACL support enabled in 86 the kernel configuration (CONFIG_EXT3_FS_POSIX_ACL). 87 See the acl(5) manual page and http://acl.bestbits.at/ 88 for more information. 89 90 noacl This option disables POSIX Access Control List 91 support. 92 93 reservation 94 95 noreservation 96 97 bsddf (*) Make 'df' act like BSD. 98 minixdf Make 'df' act like Minix. 99 100 check=none Don't do extra checking of bitmaps on mount. 101 nocheck 102 103 debug Extra debugging information is sent to syslog. 104 105 errors=remount-ro Remount the filesystem read-only on an error. 106 errors=continue Keep going on a filesystem error. 107 errors=panic Panic and halt the machine if an error occurs. 108 (These mount options override the errors behavior 109 specified in the superblock, which can be 110 configured using tune2fs.) 111 112 data_err=ignore(*) Just print an error message if an error occurs 113 in a file data buffer in ordered mode. 114 data_err=abort Abort the journal if an error occurs in a file 115 data buffer in ordered mode. 116 117 grpid Give objects the same group ID as their creator. 118 bsdgroups 119 120 nogrpid (*) New objects have the group ID of their creator. 121 sysvgroups 122 123 resgid=n The group ID which may use the reserved blocks. 124 125 resuid=n The user ID which may use the reserved blocks. 126 127 sb=n Use alternate superblock at this location. 128 129 quota These options are ignored by the filesystem. They 130 noquota are used only by quota tools to recognize volumes 131 grpquota where quota should be turned on. See documentation 132 usrquota in the quota-tools package for more details 133 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxquota). 134 135 jqfmt=<quota type> These options tell filesystem details about quota 136 usrjquota=<file> so that quota information can be properly updated 137 grpjquota=<file> during journal replay. They replace the above 138 quota options. See documentation in the quota-tools 139 package for more details 140 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxquota). 141 142 Specification 143 ============= 144 Ext3 shares all disk implementation with the ext2 filesystem, and adds 145 transactions capabilities to ext2. Journaling is done by the Journaling Block 146 Device layer. 147 148 Journaling Block Device layer 149 ----------------------------- 150 The Journaling Block Device layer (JBD) isn't ext3 specific. It was designed 151 to add journaling capabilities to a block device. The ext3 filesystem code 152 will inform the JBD of modifications it is performing (called a transaction). 153 The journal supports the transactions start and stop, and in case of a crash, 154 the journal can replay the transactions to quickly put the partition back into 155 a consistent state. 156 157 Handles represent a single atomic update to a filesystem. JBD can handle an 158 external journal on a block device. 159 160 Data Mode 161 --------- 162 There are 3 different data modes: 163 164 * writeback mode 165 In data=writeback mode, ext3 does not journal data at all. This mode provides 166 a similar level of journaling as that of XFS, JFS, and ReiserFS in its default 167 mode - metadata journaling. A crash+recovery can cause incorrect data to 168 appear in files which were written shortly before the crash. This mode will 169 typically provide the best ext3 performance. 170 171 * ordered mode 172 In data=ordered mode, ext3 only officially journals metadata, but it logically 173 groups metadata and data blocks into a single unit called a transaction. When 174 it's time to write the new metadata out to disk, the associated data blocks 175 are written first. In general, this mode performs slightly slower than 176 writeback but significantly faster than journal mode. 177 178 * journal mode 179 data=journal mode provides full data and metadata journaling. All new data is 180 written to the journal first, and then to its final location. 181 In the event of a crash, the journal can be replayed, bringing both data and 182 metadata into a consistent state. This mode is the slowest except when data 183 needs to be read from and written to disk at the same time where it 184 outperforms all other modes. 185 186 Compatibility 187 ------------- 188 189 Ext2 partitions can be easily convert to ext3, with `tune2fs -j <dev>`. 190 Ext3 is fully compatible with Ext2. Ext3 partitions can easily be mounted as 191 Ext2. 192 193 194 External Tools 195 ============== 196 See manual pages to learn more. 197 198 tune2fs: create a ext3 journal on a ext2 partition with the -j flag. 199 mke2fs: create a ext3 partition with the -j flag. 200 debugfs: ext2 and ext3 file system debugger. 201 ext2online: online (mounted) ext2 and ext3 filesystem resizer 202 203 204 References 205 ========== 206 207 kernel source: <file:fs/ext3/> 208 <file:fs/jbd/> 209 210 programs: http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/ 211 http://ext2resize.sourceforge.net 212 213 useful links: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-fs7/index.html 214 http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-fs8/index.html