path: root/Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt

Ext4 Filesystem
===============

This is a development version of the ext4 filesystem, an advanced level
of the ext3 filesystem which incorporates scalability and reliability
enhancements for supporting large filesystems (64 bit) in keeping with
increasing disk capacities and state-of-the-art feature requirements.

Mailing list: linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org


1. Quick usage instructions:
===========================

  - Compile and install the latest version of e2fsprogs (as of this
    writing version 1.41) from:

    http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2406
	
	or

    ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/tytso/e2fsprogs/

	or grab the latest git repository from:

    git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/ext2/e2fsprogs.git

  - Note that it is highly important to install the mke2fs.conf file
    that comes with the e2fsprogs 1.41.x sources in /etc/mke2fs.conf. If
    you have edited the /etc/mke2fs.conf file installed on your system,
    you will need to merge your changes with the version from e2fsprogs
    1.41.x.

  - Create a new filesystem using the ext4 filesystem type:

    	# mke2fs -t ext4 /dev/hda1

    Or configure an existing ext3 filesystem to support extents and set
    the test_fs flag to indicate that it's ok for an in-development
    filesystem to touch this filesystem:

	# tune2fs -O extents -E test_fs /dev/hda1

    If the filesystem was created with 128 byte inodes, it can be
    converted to use 256 byte for greater efficiency via:

        # tune2fs -I 256 /dev/hda1

    (Note: we currently do not have tools to convert an ext4
    filesystem back to ext3; so please do not do try this on production
    filesystems.)

  - Mounting:

	# mount -t ext4 /dev/hda1 /wherever

  - When comparing performance with other filesystems, remember that
    ext3/4 by default offers higher data integrity guarantees than most.
    So when comparing with a metadata-only journalling filesystem, such
    as ext3, use `mount -o data=writeback'.  And you might as well use
    `mount -o nobh' too along with it.  Making the journal larger than
    the mke2fs default often helps performance with metadata-intensive
    workloads.

2. Features
===========

2.1 Currently available

* ability to use filesystems > 16TB (e2fsprogs support not available yet)
* extent format reduces metadata overhead (RAM, IO for access, transactions)
* extent format more robust in face of on-disk corruption due to magics,
* internal redunancy in tree
* improved file allocation (multi-block alloc)
* fix 32000 subdirectory limit
* nsec timestamps for mtime, atime, ctime, create time
* inode version field on disk (NFSv4, Lustre)
* reduced e2fsck time via uninit_bg feature
* journal checksumming for robustness, performance
* persistent file preallocation (e.g for streaming media, databases)
* ability to pack bitmaps and inode tables into larger virtual groups via the
  flex_bg feature
* large file support
* Inode allocation using large virtual block groups via flex_bg
* delayed allocation
* large block (up to pagesize) support
* efficent new ordered mode in JBD2 and ext4(avoid using buffer head to force
  the ordering)

2.2 Candidate features for future inclusion

* Online defrag (patches available but not well tested)
* reduced mke2fs time via lazy itable initialization in conjuction with
  the uninit_bg feature (capability to do this is available in e2fsprogs
  but a kernel thread to do lazy zeroing of unused inode table blocks
  after filesystem is first mounted is required for safety)

There are several others under discussion, whether they all make it in is
partly a function of how much time everyone has to work on them. Features like
metadata checksumming have been discussed and planned for a bit but no patches
exist yet so I'm not sure they're in the near-term roadmap.

The big performance win will come with mballoc, delalloc and flex_bg
grouping of bitmaps and inode tables.  Some test results available here:

 - http://www.bullopensource.org/ext4/20080530/ffsb-write-2.6.26-rc2.html
 - http://www.bullopensource.org/ext4/20080530/ffsb-readwrite-2.6.26-rc2.html

3. Options
==========

When mounting an ext4 filesystem, the following option are accepted:
(*) == default

extents		(*)	ext4 will use extents to address file data.  The
			file system will no longer be mountable by ext3.

noextents		ext4 will not use extents for newly created files

journal_checksum	Enable checksumming of the journal transactions.
			This will allow the recovery code in e2fsck and the
			kernel to detect corruption in the kernel.  It is a
			compatible change and will be ignored by older kernels.

journal_async_commit	Commit block can be written to disk without waiting
			for descriptor blocks. If enabled older kernels cannot
			mount the device. This will enable 'journal_checksum'
			internally.

journal=update		Update the ext4 file system's journal to the current
			format.

journal=inum		When a journal already exists, this option is ignored.
			Otherwise, it specifies the number of the inode which
			will represent the ext4 file system's journal file.

journal_dev=devnum	When the external journal device's major/minor numbers
			have changed, this option allows the user to specify
			the new journal location.  The journal device is
			identified through its new major/minor numbers encoded
			in devnum.

noload			Don't load the journal on mounting.

data=journal		All data are committed into the journal prior to being
			written into the main file system.

data=ordered	(*)	All data are forced directly out to the main file
			system prior to its metadata being committed to the
			journal.

data=writeback		Data ordering is not preserved, data may be written
			into the main file system after its metadata has been
			committed to the journal.

commit=nrsec	(*)	Ext4 can be told to sync all its data and metadata
			every 'nrsec' seconds. The default value is 5 seconds.
			This means that if you lose your power, you will lose
			as much as the latest 5 seconds of work (your
			filesystem will not be damaged though, thanks to the
			journaling).  This default value (or any low value)
			will hurt performance, but it's good for data-safety.
			Setting it to 0 will have the same effect as leaving
			it at the default (5 seconds).
			Setting it to very large values will improve
			performance.

barrier=<0|1(*)>	This enables/disables the use of write barriers in
			the jbd code.  barrier=0 disables, barrier=1 enables.
			This also requires an IO stack which can support
			barriers, and if jbd gets an error on a barrier
			write, it will disable again with a warning.
			Write barriers enforce proper on-disk ordering
			of journal commits, making volatile disk write caches
			safe to use, at some performance penalty.  If
			your disks are battery-backed in one way or another,
			disabling barriers may safely improve performance.

inode_readahead=n	This tuning parameter controls the maximum
			number of inode table blocks that ext4's inode
			table readahead algorithm will pre-read into
			the buffer cache.  The default value is 32 blocks.

orlov		(*)	This enables the new Orlov block allocator. It is
			enabled by default.

oldalloc		This disables the Orlov block allocator and enables
			the old block allocator.  Orlov should have better
			performance - we'd like to get some feedback if it's
			the contrary for you.

user_xattr		Enables Extended User Attributes.  Additionally, you
			need to have extended attribute support enabled in the
			kernel configuration (CONFIG_EXT4_FS_XATTR).  See the
			attr(5) manual page and http://acl.bestbits.at/ to
			learn more about extended attributes.

nouser_xattr		Disables Extended User Attributes.

acl			Enables POSIX Access Control Lists support.
			Additionally, you need to have ACL support enabled in
			the kernel configuration (CONFIG_EXT4_FS_POSIX_ACL).
			See the acl(5) manual page and http://acl.bestbits.at/
			for more information.

noacl			This option disables POSIX Access Control List
			support.

reservation

noreservation

bsddf		(*)	Make 'df' act like BSD.
minixdf			Make 'df' act like Minix.

check=none		Don't do extra checking of bitmaps on mount.
nocheck

debug			Extra debugging information is sent to syslog.

errors=remount-ro(*)	Remount the filesystem read-only on an error.
errors=continue		Keep going on a filesystem error.
errors=panic		Panic and halt the machine if an error occurs.

grpid			Give objects the same group ID as their creator.
bsdgroups

nogrpid		(*)	New objects have the group ID of their creator.
sysvgroups

resgid=n		The group ID which may use the reserved blocks.

resuid=n		The user ID which may use the reserved blocks.

sb=n			Use alternate superblock at this location.

quota
noquota
grpquota
usrquota

bh		(*)	ext4 associates buffer heads to data pages to
nobh			(a) cache disk block mapping information
			(b) link pages into transaction to provide
			    ordering guarantees.
			"bh" option forces use of buffer heads.
			"nobh" option tries to avoid associating buffer
			heads (supported only for "writeback" mode).

mballoc		(*)	Use the multiple block allocator for block allocation
nomballoc		disabled multiple block allocator for block allocation.
stripe=n		Number of filesystem blocks that mballoc will try
			to use for allocation size and alignment. For RAID5/6
			systems this should be the number of data
			disks *  RAID chunk size in file system blocks.
delalloc	(*)	Deferring block allocation until write-out time.
nodelalloc		Disable delayed allocation. Blocks are allocation
			when data is copied from user to page cache.

Data Mode
=========
There are 3 different data modes:

* writeback mode
In data=writeback mode, ext4 does not journal data at all.  This mode provides
a similar level of journaling as that of XFS, JFS, and ReiserFS in its default
mode - metadata journaling.  A crash+recovery can cause incorrect data to
appear in files which were written shortly before the crash.  This mode will
typically provide the best ext4 performance.

* ordered mode
In data=ordered mode, ext4 only officially journals metadata, but it logically
groups metadata information related to data changes with the data blocks into a
single unit called a transaction.  When it's time to write the new metadata
out to disk, the associated data blocks are written first.  In general,
this mode performs slightly slower than writeback but significantly faster than journal mode.

* journal mode
data=journal mode provides full data and metadata journaling.  All new data is
written to the journal first, and then to its final location.
In the event of a crash, the journal can be replayed, bringing both data and
metadata into a consistent state.  This mode is the slowest except when data
needs to be read from and written to disk at the same time where it
outperforms all others modes.  Curently ext4 does not have delayed
allocation support if this data journalling mode is selected.

References
==========

kernel source:	<file:fs/ext4/>
		<file:fs/jbd2/>

programs:	http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/

useful links:	http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ext3-devel
		http://www.bullopensource.org/ext4/
		http://ext4.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page
		http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Ext4