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RESIZE2FS(8)		     System Manager's Manual		    RESIZE2FS(8)

NAME
     resize2fs - ext2/ext3/ext4 file system resizer

SYNOPSIS
     resize2fs [ -fFpPMbs ] [ -d debug-flags ] [ -S RAID-stride ] [ -z undo_file
     ] device [ size ]

DESCRIPTION
     The resize2fs program will resize ext2, ext3, or ext4 file systems.  It can
     be  used  to  enlarge or shrink an unmounted file system located on device.
     If the file system is mounted, it can be used to expand  the  size  of  the
     mounted  file  system, assuming the kernel and the file system supports on-
     line resizing.  (Modern Linux 2.6 kernels will support on-line  resize  for
     file  systems  mounted  using ext3 and ext4; ext3 file systems will require
     the use of file systems with the resize_inode feature enabled.)

     The size parameter specifies the requested new size of the file system.  If
     no units are specified, the units of the size parameter shall be  the  file
     system blocksize of the file system.  Optionally, the size parameter may be
     suffixed by one of the following units designators: 'K', 'M', 'G', 'T' (ei-
     ther   upper-case	 or  lower-case)  or  's'  for	power-of-two  kilobytes,
     megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes or 512 byte sectors respectively. The  size
     of  the file system may never be larger than the size of the partition.  If
     size parameter is not specified, it will default to the size of the  parti-
     tion.

     The  resize2fs  program does not manipulate the size of partitions.  If you
     wish to enlarge a file system, 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  lvex-
     tend(8),  if you're using the logical volume manager lvm(8).  When recreat-
     ing 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 file system.   After  running  fdisk(8),
     run resize2fs to resize the ext2 file system 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 file system.  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 file system!

     The -b and -s options enable and disable the 64bit  feature,  respectively.
     The  resize2fs  program  will,  of  course, take care of resizing the block
     group descriptors and moving other data blocks out of the way,  as  needed.
     It  is  not possible to resize the file system concurrent with changing the
     64bit status.

OPTIONS
     -b     Turns on the 64bit feature, resizes the group descriptors as  neces-
	    sary, and moves other metadata out of the way.

     -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:
		 2    - Debug block relocations
		 4    - Debug inode relocations
		 8    - Debug moving the inode table
		 16   - Print timing information
		 32   - Debug minimum file system size (-M) calculation

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

     -F     Flush the file system device's buffer caches before beginning.  Only
	    really useful for doing resize2fs time trials.

     -M     Shrink the file system to minimize its size  as  much  as  possible,
	    given the files stored in the file system.

     -p     Print out percentage completion bars for each resize2fs phase during
	    an offline (non-trivial) resize operation, so that the user can keep
	    track  of  what  the program is doing.  (For very fast resize opera-
	    tions, no progress bars may be displayed.)

     -P     Print an estimate of the number of file system blocks  in  the  file
	    system if it is shrunk using resize2fs's -M option and then exit.

     -s     Turns  off	the 64bit feature and frees blocks that are no longer in
	    use.

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

     -z undo_file
	    Before  overwriting  a  file system block, write the old contents of
	    the block to an  undo  file.   This  undo  file  can  be  used  with
	    e2undo(8)  to  restore  the  old  contents of the file system should
	    something go wrong.  If the empty string is passed as the  undo_file
	    argument,  the  undo file will be written to a file named resize2fs-
	    device.e2undo in the directory specified via the  E2FSPROGS_UNDO_DIR
	    environment variable.

	    WARNING:  The  undo  file  cannot be used to recover from a power or
	    system crash.

KNOWN BUGS
     The minimum size of the file system as estimated by resize2fs may be incor-
     rect, especially for file systems with 1k and 2k blocksizes.

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.

SEE ALSO
     fdisk(8), e2fsck(8), mke2fs(8), lvm(8), lvextend(8)

E2fsprogs version 1.47.4	   March 2025			    RESIZE2FS(8)

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