383 lines
18 KiB
Plaintext
383 lines
18 KiB
Plaintext
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The Second Extended Filesystem
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==============================
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ext2 was originally released in January 1993. Written by R\'emy Card,
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Theodore Ts'o and Stephen Tweedie, it was a major rewrite of the
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Extended Filesystem. It is currently still (April 2001) the predominant
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filesystem in use by Linux. There are also implementations available
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for NetBSD, FreeBSD, the GNU HURD, Windows 95/98/NT, OS/2 and RISC OS.
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Options
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=======
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Most defaults are determined by the filesystem superblock, and can be
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set using tune2fs(8). Kernel-determined defaults are indicated by (*).
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bsddf (*) Makes `df' act like BSD.
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minixdf Makes `df' act like Minix.
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check=none, nocheck (*) Don't do extra checking of bitmaps on mount
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(check=normal and check=strict options removed)
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debug Extra debugging information is sent to the
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kernel syslog. Useful for developers.
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errors=continue Keep going on a filesystem error.
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errors=remount-ro Remount the filesystem read-only on an error.
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errors=panic Panic and halt the machine if an error occurs.
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grpid, bsdgroups Give objects the same group ID as their parent.
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nogrpid, sysvgroups New objects have the group ID of their creator.
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nouid32 Use 16-bit UIDs and GIDs.
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oldalloc Enable the old block allocator. Orlov should
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have better performance, we'd like to get some
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feedback if it's the contrary for you.
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orlov (*) Use the Orlov block allocator.
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(See http://lwn.net/Articles/14633/ and
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http://lwn.net/Articles/14446/.)
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resuid=n The user ID which may use the reserved blocks.
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resgid=n The group ID which may use the reserved blocks.
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sb=n Use alternate superblock at this location.
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user_xattr Enable "user." POSIX Extended Attributes
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(requires CONFIG_EXT2_FS_XATTR).
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See also http://acl.bestbits.at
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nouser_xattr Don't support "user." extended attributes.
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acl Enable POSIX Access Control Lists support
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(requires CONFIG_EXT2_FS_POSIX_ACL).
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See also http://acl.bestbits.at
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noacl Don't support POSIX ACLs.
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nobh Do not attach buffer_heads to file pagecache.
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xip Use execute in place (no caching) if possible
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grpquota,noquota,quota,usrquota Quota options are silently ignored by ext2.
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Specification
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=============
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ext2 shares many properties with traditional Unix filesystems. It has
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the concepts of blocks, inodes and directories. It has space in the
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specification for Access Control Lists (ACLs), fragments, undeletion and
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compression though these are not yet implemented (some are available as
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separate patches). There is also a versioning mechanism to allow new
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features (such as journalling) to be added in a maximally compatible
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manner.
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Blocks
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------
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The space in the device or file is split up into blocks. These are
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a fixed size, of 1024, 2048 or 4096 bytes (8192 bytes on Alpha systems),
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which is decided when the filesystem is created. Smaller blocks mean
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less wasted space per file, but require slightly more accounting overhead,
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and also impose other limits on the size of files and the filesystem.
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Block Groups
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------------
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Blocks are clustered into block groups in order to reduce fragmentation
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and minimise the amount of head seeking when reading a large amount
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of consecutive data. Information about each block group is kept in a
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descriptor table stored in the block(s) immediately after the superblock.
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Two blocks near the start of each group are reserved for the block usage
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bitmap and the inode usage bitmap which show which blocks and inodes
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are in use. Since each bitmap is limited to a single block, this means
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that the maximum size of a block group is 8 times the size of a block.
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The block(s) following the bitmaps in each block group are designated
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as the inode table for that block group and the remainder are the data
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blocks. The block allocation algorithm attempts to allocate data blocks
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in the same block group as the inode which contains them.
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The Superblock
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--------------
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The superblock contains all the information about the configuration of
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the filing system. The primary copy of the superblock is stored at an
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offset of 1024 bytes from the start of the device, and it is essential
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to mounting the filesystem. Since it is so important, backup copies of
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the superblock are stored in block groups throughout the filesystem.
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The first version of ext2 (revision 0) stores a copy at the start of
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every block group, along with backups of the group descriptor block(s).
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Because this can consume a considerable amount of space for large
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filesystems, later revisions can optionally reduce the number of backup
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copies by only putting backups in specific groups (this is the sparse
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superblock feature). The groups chosen are 0, 1 and powers of 3, 5 and 7.
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The information in the superblock contains fields such as the total
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number of inodes and blocks in the filesystem and how many are free,
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how many inodes and blocks are in each block group, when the filesystem
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was mounted (and if it was cleanly unmounted), when it was modified,
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what version of the filesystem it is (see the Revisions section below)
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and which OS created it.
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If the filesystem is revision 1 or higher, then there are extra fields,
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such as a volume name, a unique identification number, the inode size,
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and space for optional filesystem features to store configuration info.
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All fields in the superblock (as in all other ext2 structures) are stored
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on the disc in little endian format, so a filesystem is portable between
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machines without having to know what machine it was created on.
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Inodes
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------
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The inode (index node) is a fundamental concept in the ext2 filesystem.
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Each object in the filesystem is represented by an inode. The inode
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structure contains pointers to the filesystem blocks which contain the
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data held in the object and all of the metadata about an object except
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its name. The metadata about an object includes the permissions, owner,
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group, flags, size, number of blocks used, access time, change time,
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modification time, deletion time, number of links, fragments, version
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(for NFS) and extended attributes (EAs) and/or Access Control Lists (ACLs).
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There are some reserved fields which are currently unused in the inode
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structure and several which are overloaded. One field is reserved for the
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directory ACL if the inode is a directory and alternately for the top 32
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bits of the file size if the inode is a regular file (allowing file sizes
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larger than 2GB). The translator field is unused under Linux, but is used
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by the HURD to reference the inode of a program which will be used to
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interpret this object. Most of the remaining reserved fields have been
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used up for both Linux and the HURD for larger owner and group fields,
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The HURD also has a larger mode field so it uses another of the remaining
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fields to store the extra more bits.
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There are pointers to the first 12 blocks which contain the file's data
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in the inode. There is a pointer to an indirect block (which contains
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pointers to the next set of blocks), a pointer to a doubly-indirect
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block (which contains pointers to indirect blocks) and a pointer to a
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trebly-indirect block (which contains pointers to doubly-indirect blocks).
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The flags field contains some ext2-specific flags which aren't catered
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for by the standard chmod flags. These flags can be listed with lsattr
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and changed with the chattr command, and allow specific filesystem
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behaviour on a per-file basis. There are flags for secure deletion,
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undeletable, compression, synchronous updates, immutability, append-only,
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dumpable, no-atime, indexed directories, and data-journaling. Not all
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of these are supported yet.
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Directories
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-----------
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A directory is a filesystem object and has an inode just like a file.
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It is a specially formatted file containing records which associate
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each name with an inode number. Later revisions of the filesystem also
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encode the type of the object (file, directory, symlink, device, fifo,
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socket) to avoid the need to check the inode itself for this information
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(support for taking advantage of this feature does not yet exist in
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Glibc 2.2).
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The inode allocation code tries to assign inodes which are in the same
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block group as the directory in which they are first created.
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The current implementation of ext2 uses a singly-linked list to store
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the filenames in the directory; a pending enhancement uses hashing of the
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filenames to allow lookup without the need to scan the entire directory.
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The current implementation never removes empty directory blocks once they
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have been allocated to hold more files.
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Special files
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-------------
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Symbolic links are also filesystem objects with inodes. They deserve
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special mention because the data for them is stored within the inode
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itself if the symlink is less than 60 bytes long. It uses the fields
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which would normally be used to store the pointers to data blocks.
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This is a worthwhile optimisation as it we avoid allocating a full
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block for the symlink, and most symlinks are less than 60 characters long.
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Character and block special devices never have data blocks assigned to
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them. Instead, their device number is stored in the inode, again reusing
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the fields which would be used to point to the data blocks.
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Reserved Space
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--------------
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In ext2, there is a mechanism for reserving a certain number of blocks
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for a particular user (normally the super-user). This is intended to
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allow for the system to continue functioning even if non-privileged users
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fill up all the space available to them (this is independent of filesystem
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quotas). It also keeps the filesystem from filling up entirely which
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helps combat fragmentation.
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Filesystem check
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----------------
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At boot time, most systems run a consistency check (e2fsck) on their
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filesystems. The superblock of the ext2 filesystem contains several
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fields which indicate whether fsck should actually run (since checking
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the filesystem at boot can take a long time if it is large). fsck will
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run if the filesystem was not cleanly unmounted, if the maximum mount
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count has been exceeded or if the maximum time between checks has been
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exceeded.
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Feature Compatibility
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---------------------
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The compatibility feature mechanism used in ext2 is sophisticated.
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It safely allows features to be added to the filesystem, without
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unnecessarily sacrificing compatibility with older versions of the
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filesystem code. The feature compatibility mechanism is not supported by
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the original revision 0 (EXT2_GOOD_OLD_REV) of ext2, but was introduced in
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revision 1. There are three 32-bit fields, one for compatible features
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(COMPAT), one for read-only compatible (RO_COMPAT) features and one for
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incompatible (INCOMPAT) features.
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These feature flags have specific meanings for the kernel as follows:
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A COMPAT flag indicates that a feature is present in the filesystem,
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but the on-disk format is 100% compatible with older on-disk formats, so
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a kernel which didn't know anything about this feature could read/write
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the filesystem without any chance of corrupting the filesystem (or even
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making it inconsistent). This is essentially just a flag which says
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"this filesystem has a (hidden) feature" that the kernel or e2fsck may
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want to be aware of (more on e2fsck and feature flags later). The ext3
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HAS_JOURNAL feature is a COMPAT flag because the ext3 journal is simply
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a regular file with data blocks in it so the kernel does not need to
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take any special notice of it if it doesn't understand ext3 journaling.
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An RO_COMPAT flag indicates that the on-disk format is 100% compatible
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with older on-disk formats for reading (i.e. the feature does not change
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the visible on-disk format). However, an old kernel writing to such a
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filesystem would/could corrupt the filesystem, so this is prevented. The
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most common such feature, SPARSE_SUPER, is an RO_COMPAT feature because
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sparse groups allow file data blocks where superblock/group descriptor
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backups used to live, and ext2_free_blocks() refuses to free these blocks,
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which would leading to inconsistent bitmaps. An old kernel would also
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get an error if it tried to free a series of blocks which crossed a group
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boundary, but this is a legitimate layout in a SPARSE_SUPER filesystem.
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An INCOMPAT flag indicates the on-disk format has changed in some
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way that makes it unreadable by older kernels, or would otherwise
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cause a problem if an old kernel tried to mount it. FILETYPE is an
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INCOMPAT flag because older kernels would think a filename was longer
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than 256 characters, which would lead to corrupt directory listings.
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The COMPRESSION flag is an obvious INCOMPAT flag - if the kernel
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doesn't understand compression, you would just get garbage back from
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read() instead of it automatically decompressing your data. The ext3
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RECOVER flag is needed to prevent a kernel which does not understand the
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ext3 journal from mounting the filesystem without replaying the journal.
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For e2fsck, it needs to be more strict with the handling of these
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flags than the kernel. If it doesn't understand ANY of the COMPAT,
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RO_COMPAT, or INCOMPAT flags it will refuse to check the filesystem,
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because it has no way of verifying whether a given feature is valid
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or not. Allowing e2fsck to succeed on a filesystem with an unknown
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feature is a false sense of security for the user. Refusing to check
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a filesystem with unknown features is a good incentive for the user to
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update to the latest e2fsck. This also means that anyone adding feature
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flags to ext2 also needs to update e2fsck to verify these features.
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Metadata
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--------
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It is frequently claimed that the ext2 implementation of writing
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asynchronous metadata is faster than the ffs synchronous metadata
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scheme but less reliable. Both methods are equally resolvable by their
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respective fsck programs.
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If you're exceptionally paranoid, there are 3 ways of making metadata
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writes synchronous on ext2:
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per-file if you have the program source: use the O_SYNC flag to open()
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per-file if you don't have the source: use "chattr +S" on the file
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per-filesystem: add the "sync" option to mount (or in /etc/fstab)
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the first and last are not ext2 specific but do force the metadata to
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be written synchronously. See also Journaling below.
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Limitations
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-----------
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There are various limits imposed by the on-disk layout of ext2. Other
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limits are imposed by the current implementation of the kernel code.
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Many of the limits are determined at the time the filesystem is first
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created, and depend upon the block size chosen. The ratio of inodes to
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data blocks is fixed at filesystem creation time, so the only way to
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increase the number of inodes is to increase the size of the filesystem.
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No tools currently exist which can change the ratio of inodes to blocks.
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Most of these limits could be overcome with slight changes in the on-disk
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format and using a compatibility flag to signal the format change (at
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the expense of some compatibility).
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Filesystem block size: 1kB 2kB 4kB 8kB
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File size limit: 16GB 256GB 2048GB 2048GB
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Filesystem size limit: 2047GB 8192GB 16384GB 32768GB
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There is a 2.4 kernel limit of 2048GB for a single block device, so no
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filesystem larger than that can be created at this time. There is also
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an upper limit on the block size imposed by the page size of the kernel,
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so 8kB blocks are only allowed on Alpha systems (and other architectures
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which support larger pages).
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There is an upper limit of 32768 subdirectories in a single directory.
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There is a "soft" upper limit of about 10-15k files in a single directory
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with the current linear linked-list directory implementation. This limit
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stems from performance problems when creating and deleting (and also
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finding) files in such large directories. Using a hashed directory index
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(under development) allows 100k-1M+ files in a single directory without
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performance problems (although RAM size becomes an issue at this point).
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The (meaningless) absolute upper limit of files in a single directory
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(imposed by the file size, the realistic limit is obviously much less)
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is over 130 trillion files. It would be higher except there are not
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enough 4-character names to make up unique directory entries, so they
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have to be 8 character filenames, even then we are fairly close to
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running out of unique filenames.
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Journaling
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----------
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A journaling extension to the ext2 code has been developed by Stephen
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Tweedie. It avoids the risks of metadata corruption and the need to
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wait for e2fsck to complete after a crash, without requiring a change
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to the on-disk ext2 layout. In a nutshell, the journal is a regular
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file which stores whole metadata (and optionally data) blocks that have
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been modified, prior to writing them into the filesystem. This means
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it is possible to add a journal to an existing ext2 filesystem without
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the need for data conversion.
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When changes to the filesystem (e.g. a file is renamed) they are stored in
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a transaction in the journal and can either be complete or incomplete at
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the time of a crash. If a transaction is complete at the time of a crash
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(or in the normal case where the system does not crash), then any blocks
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in that transaction are guaranteed to represent a valid filesystem state,
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and are copied into the filesystem. If a transaction is incomplete at
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the time of the crash, then there is no guarantee of consistency for
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the blocks in that transaction so they are discarded (which means any
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filesystem changes they represent are also lost).
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Check Documentation/filesystems/ext3.txt if you want to read more about
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ext3 and journaling.
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References
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==========
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The kernel source file:/usr/src/linux/fs/ext2/
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e2fsprogs (e2fsck) http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/
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Design & Implementation http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/ext2intro.html
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Journaling (ext3) ftp://ftp.uk.linux.org/pub/linux/sct/fs/jfs/
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Filesystem Resizing http://ext2resize.sourceforge.net/
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Compression (*) http://e2compr.sourceforge.net/
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Implementations for:
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Windows 95/98/NT/2000 http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/Explore2fs.htm
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Windows 95 (*) http://www.yipton.demon.co.uk/content.html#FSDEXT2
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DOS client (*) ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/filesystems/ext2/
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OS/2 http://perso.wanadoo.fr/matthieu.willm/ext2-os2/
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RISC OS client ftp://ftp.barnet.ac.uk/pub/acorn/armlinux/iscafs/
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(*) no longer actively developed/supported (as of Apr 2001)
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