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GROWFS(7)		 Miscellaneous Information Manual	       GROWFS(7)

NAME
     growfs,  growfs_fstab  -- start up scripts to grow the root file system and
     add swap

DESCRIPTION
     The growfs script normally runs at the first boot	after  system  installa-
     tion.  If the boot disk is larger than the root file system and boot parti-
     tions, and the root file system is in the last partition, growfs can expand
     the  root	file  system.	It can also add a swap partition, with a default
     size of 10% of the boot disk.  Swap is limited to twice the memory size  up
     to  4 GB, 8 GB up to 8 GB of memory, and memory size over 8 GB.  It is also
     limited to the sysctl(8) value of vm.swap_maxpages divided by  2.	 By  de-
     fault,  no swap partition is created if an existing swap partition is found
     or is listed in /etc/fstab, or the disk is under 15 GB.   The  growfs_fstab
     script adds any new swap partition to /etc/fstab after the root file system
     is  made  writable,  and enables its use as a dump partition if the dumpdev
     variable from rc.conf(5) is set to AUTO.

     The following options in /etc/rc.conf control the behavior of growfs:

	   growfs_enable     ("NO") If set to "YES", the first time the  machine
			     boots,  the  root file system will be automatically
			     expanded, if possible, to	fill  up  all  available
			     space  after it, after optionally adding a swap de-
			     vice at the end.

	   growfs_swap_size  ("") If set to "0", the addition of a  swap  parti-
			     tion  is  disabled.  An empty value ("") allows the
			     creation of a swap partition with the default size.
			     If set to another value, the swap partition will be
			     created with the specified size in bytes,	even  if
			     another swap partition is detected.

     A	setting  for  growfs_swap_size	can be set in the kernel environment, in
     which case it overrides the value from /etc/rc.conf.

     To expand the root file system without rebooting, run  the  following  com-
     mand:
	   % /etc/rc.d/growfs onestart
     In addition, if a swap partition is added, run the command:
	   % /etc/rc.d/growfs_fstab onestart
     Note that if a disk is expanded again, and if the root file system had pre-
     viously been expanded and a swap partition added, it is necessary to delete
     the  swap	partition before this procedure in order to expand the root file
     system to the new size.  A new swap partition can be created during the ex-
     pansion.

IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
     The growfs script only attempts to expand the root file  system,  and  free
     space  must  be available immediately after the root partition.  It is nor-
     mally used on images that have a single file system.  The	script	requires
     that  awk(1) be present and in the path.  This usually means that /usr must
     be available prior to running the script.

FILES
     /etc/fstab
     /etc/rc.conf

EXIT STATUS
     The growfs utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

SEE ALSO
     fstab(5), rc.conf(5), growfs(8), zpool(8)

HISTORY
     The growfs manual page first appeared in FreeBSD 10.1.  The ability to  add
     a swap partition was added in FreeBSD 13.2.

AUTHORS
     The man page and script were written by John-Mark Gurney <jmg@FreeBSD.org>.
     The ability to create a swap partition was added by
     Michael Karels <karels@FreeBSD.org>.

FreeBSD ports 15.quarterly	November 22, 2022		       GROWFS(7)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=growfs&sektion=7&manpath=FreeBSD+15.1-RELEASE+and+Ports.quarterly>

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