Ubuntu Manpage: resize2fs - ext2/ext3 file system resizer

Provided by: e2fsprogs_1.40.8-2ubuntu2_i386

NAME

       resize2fs - ext2/ext3 file system resizer

SYNOPSIS

       resize2fs  [  -d  debug-flags ] [ -S RAID-stride ] [ -f ] [ -F ] [ -p ]
       device [ size ]

DESCRIPTION

The resize2fs program will resize ext2 or ext3 file systems. It can be
used to enlarge or shrink an unmounted file system located on device.
If the filesystem is mounted, it can be used to expand the size of the
mounted filesystem, assuming the kernel supports on-line resizing. (As
of this writing, the Linux 2.6 kernel supports on-line resize for
filesystems mounted using ext3 only.).

The size parameter specifies the requested new size of the filesystem.
If no units are specified, the units of the size parameter shall be the
filesystem blocksize of the filesystem. Optionally, the size parameter
may be suffixed by one of the following the units designators: ’s’,
’K’, ’M’, or ’G’, for 512 byte sectors, kilobytes, megabytes, or
gigabytes, respectively. The size of the filesystem may never be
larger than the size of the partition. If size parameter is not
specified, it will default to the size of the partition.

The resize2fs program does not manipulate the size of partitions. If
you wish to enlarge a filesystem, you must make sure you can expand the
size of the underlying partition first. This can be done using
fdisk(8) by deleting the partition and recreating it with a larger size
or using lvextend(8), if you’re using the logical volume manager
lvm(8). When recreating the partition, make sure you create it with
the same starting disk cylinder as before! Otherwise, the resize
operation will certainly not work, and you may lose your entire
filesystem. After running fdisk(8), run resize2fs to resize the ext2
filesystem to use all of the space in the newly enlarged partition.

If you wish to shrink an ext2 partition, first use resize2fs to shrink
the size of filesystem. Then you may use fdisk(8) to shrink the size
of the partition. When shrinking the size of the partition, make sure
you do not make it smaller than the new size of the ext2 filesystem!

OPTIONS

       -d debug-flags
              Turns on various resize2fs debugging features, if they have been
              compiled  into  the  binary.   debug-flags should be computed by
              adding the numbers of the desired features  from  the  following
              list:
                   1    - Print out all disk I/O
                   2    - Debug block relocations
                   8    - Debug inode relocations
                   16   - Debug moving the inode table

       -S RAID-stride
              The  resize2fs  program  will  heuristically  determine the RAID
              stride that was specified when the filesystem was created.  This
              option  allows  the  user  to  explicitly  specify a RAID stride
              setting to be used by resize2fs instead.

       -p     Prints out a  percentage  completion  bars  for  each  resize2fs
              operation,  so  that the user can keep track of what the program
              is doing.

       -f     Forces  resize2fs  to  proceed  with   the   filesystem   resize
              operation,   overriding   some  safety  checks  which  resize2fs
              normally enforces.

       -F     Flush the filesystem device’s buffer  caches  before  beginning.
              Only really useful for doing resize2fs time trials.

AUTHOR

       resize2fs was written by Theodore Ts’o <tytso@mit.edu>.

COPYRIGHT

       Resize2fs  is Copyright 1998 by Theodore Ts’o and PowerQuest, Inc.  All
       rights reserved.  As of April,  2000  Resize2fs  may  be  redistributed
       under the terms of the GPL.