ext2

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ext2 (second extended filesystem) is an open source disk filesystem created for Linux.

Installation

Kernel

Activate the following kernel options for ext2 support:

KERNEL Enabling ext2 support

File systems  --->
   <*> Second extended fs support

Support for optional ext2 features:

KERNEL Enabling ext2

File systems  --->
   [*]   Ext2 extended attributes
   [*]     Ext2 POSIX Access Control Lists
   [*]     Ext2 Security Labels

Optional ext2 support definitions

Option	Description
Ext2 extended attributes	Extended attributes are name:value pairs associated with inodes by the kernel or by users. See http://acl.bestbits.at/
Ext2 POSIX Access Control Lists	Posix Access Control Lists (ACLs) support permissions for users and groups beyond the owner/group/world scheme. See http://acl.bestbits.at/
Ext2 Security Labels	Enables an extended attribute handler for file security.

Large drive support

When the system has large disks (2 TB or greater) and a 32-bit (x86) kernel is being used, the following option (CONFIG_LBDAF) must be enabled:

KERNEL Enabling large drives for x86 kernels

-*- Enable the block layer  --->
    [*]   Support for large (2TB+) block devices and files

USE flags

The sys-fs/e2fsprogs package contains the utilities to work with the filesystem. In Gentoo Linux sys-fs/e2fsprogs is part of the system set and should be already installed on the system.

USE flags for sys-fs/e2fsprogs Standard EXT2/EXT3/EXT4 filesystem utilities

+tools	Build extfs tools (mke2fs, e2fsck, tune2fs, etc.)
archive	Add support for mke2fs to read a tarball as input. This allows not needing privileges. Needs app-arch/libarchive.
cron	Install e2scrub_all cron script
fuse	Build fuse2fs, a FUSE file system client for ext2/ext3/ext4 file systems
nls	Add Native Language Support (using gettext - GNU locale utilities)
static-libs	Build static versions of dynamic libraries as well
test	Enable dependencies and/or preparations necessary to run tests (usually controlled by FEATURES=test but can be toggled independently)

Data provided by the Gentoo Package Database · Last update: 2024-09-12 18:37 More information about USE flags

Emerge

After setting the USE flag update the system so the changes take effect:

root #emerge --ask --changed-use --deep @world

Usage

Creation

Warning
The mkfs.ext2 command irreversibly destroys any content of the partition it is told to format. Be sure to select the right partition!

To create an ext2 filesystem on the /dev/sda1 partition:

root #mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda1

Please replace /dev/sda1 with the actual partition to format.

By default, 5% of available disk space is reserved for the root user. This is usually a good thing for the partition where the / directory is mounted, but it may be not desirable on other partitions. To lose reserve disk space for the root user use mkfs.ext2's -m 0 option:

root #mkfs.ext2 -m 0 /dev/sda1