man > tune2fs(8)

TUNE2FS(8)                             System Manager's Manual                            TUNE2FS(8)

NAME
       tune2fs - adjust tunable file system parameters on ext2/ext3/ext4 file systems

SYNOPSIS
       tune2fs  [  -l ] [ -c max-mount-counts ] [ -e errors-behavior ] [ -f ] [ -i interval-between-
       checks ] [ -I new_inode_size ] [ -j ] [ -J journal-options ] [ -m  reserved-blocks-percentage
       ]  [  -o [^]mount-options[,...]  ] [ -r reserved-blocks-count ] [ -u user ] [ -g group ] [ -C
       mount-count ] [ -E extended-options ] [ -L volume-label ] [ -M last-mounted-directory ] [  -O
       [^]feature[,...]   ] [ -Q quota-options ] [ -T time-last-checked ] [ -U UUID ] [ -z undo_file
       ] device

DESCRIPTION
       tune2fs allows the system administrator to adjust various tunable file system  parameters  on
       Linux ext2, ext3, or ext4 file systems.  The current values of these options can be displayed
       by using the -l option to tune2fs(8) program, or by using the dumpe2fs(8) program.

       The  device  specifier  can either be a filename (i.e., /dev/sda1), or a LABEL or UUID speci‐
       fier: "LABEL=volume-label" or "UUID=uuid".   (i.e.,  LABEL=home  or  UUID=e40486c6-84d5-4f2f-
       b99c-032281799c9d).

OPTIONS
       -c max-mount-counts
              Adjust  the number of mounts after which the file system will be checked by e2fsck(8).
              If max-mount-counts is the string "random", tune2fs will use a random value between 20
              and 40.  If max-mount-counts is 0 or -1, the  number  of  times  the  file  system  is
              mounted will be disregarded by e2fsck(8) and the kernel.

              Staggering  the mount-counts at which file systems are forcibly checked will avoid all
              file systems being checked at one time when using journaled file systems.

              Mount-count-dependent checking is disabled by default to avoid unanticipated long  re‐
              boots  while e2fsck does its work.  If you are concerned about file system corruptions
              caused by potential hardware problems of kernel bugs, a better  solution  than  mount-
              count-dependent  checking is to use the e2scrub(8) program.  This does require placing
              the file system on an LVM volume, however.

       -C mount-count
              Set the number of times the file system has been mounted.  If set to a  greater  value
              than  the  max-mount-counts  parameter  set by the -c option, e2fsck(8) will check the
              file system at the next reboot.

       -e error-behavior
              Change the behavior of the kernel code when errors are detected.  In all cases, a file
              system error will cause e2fsck(8) to check the file system on the next  boot.   error-
              behavior can be one of the following:

                   continue    Continue normal execution.

                   remount-ro  Remount file system read-only.

                   panic       Cause a kernel panic.

       -E extended-options
              Set  extended  options for the file system.  Extended options are comma separated, and
              may take an argument using the equals ('=') sign.  The following extended options  are
              supported:

                   clear_mmp
                          Reset  the  MMP  block  (if any) back to the clean state.  Use only if ab‐
                          solutely certain the device is not currently mounted or being  fscked,  or
                          major file system corruption can result.  Needs '-f'.

                   mmp_update_interval=interval
                          Adjust the initial MMP update interval to interval seconds.  Specifying an
                          interval  of  0 means to use the default interval.  The specified interval
                          must be less than 300 seconds.  Requires that the mmp feature be enabled.

                   stride=stride-size
                          Configure the file system for a RAID array with  stride-size  file  system
                          blocks. This is the number of blocks read or written to disk before moving
                          to  next  disk. This mostly affects placement of file system metadata like
                          bitmaps at mke2fs(2) time to avoid placing them on a  single  disk,  which
                          can hurt the performance.  It may also be used by block allocator.

                   stripe_width=stripe-width
                          Configure  the  file system for a RAID array with stripe-width file system
                          blocks per stripe. This is typically be stride-size * N, where  N  is  the
                          number  of data disks in the RAID (e.g. RAID 5 N+1, RAID 6 N+2).  This al‐
                          lows the block allocator to prevent read-modify-write of the parity  in  a
                          RAID stripe if possible when the data is written.

                   hash_alg=hash-alg
                          Set  the  default  hash algorithm used for file systems with hashed b-tree
                          directories.  Valid algorithms accepted are: legacy, half_md4, and tea.

                   encoding=encoding-name
                          Enable the casefold feature in the super block and  set  encoding-name  as
                          the encoding to be used.  If encoding-name is not specified, utf8 is used.
                          The encoding cannot be altered if casefold was previously enabled.

                   encoding_flags=encoding-flags
                          Define  parameters for file name character encoding operations.  If a flag
                          is not changed using this parameter, its default value is used.  encoding-
                          flags should be a comma-separated lists of flags to be enabled.  The flags
                          cannot be altered if casefold was previously enabled.

                          The only flag that can be set right now is strict which means that invalid
                          strings should be rejected by the file system.  In the default  configura‐
                          tion, the strict flag is disabled.

                   mount_opts=mount_option_string
                          Set a set of default mount options which will be used when the file system
                          is  mounted.   Unlike the bitmask-based default mount options which can be
                          specified with the -o option, mount_option_string is an  arbitrary  string
                          with a maximum length of 63 bytes, which is stored in the superblock.

                          The ext4 file system driver will first apply the bitmask-based default op‐
                          tions,  and  then  parse the mount_option_string, before parsing the mount
                          options passed from the mount(8) program.

                          This superblock setting is only honored in 2.6.35+ kernels; and not at all
                          by the ext2 and ext3 file system drivers.

                   orphan_file_size=size
                          Set size of the file for tracking unlinked but still open inodes  and  in‐
                          odes with truncate in progress. Larger file allows for better scalability,
                          reserving a few blocks per cpu is ideal.

                   force_fsck
                          Set  a flag in the file system superblock indicating that errors have been
                          found.  This will force fsck to run at the next mount.

                   test_fs
                          Set a flag in the file system superblock indicating that it may be mounted
                          using experimental kernel code, such as the ext4dev file system.

                   ^test_fs
                          Clear the test_fs flag, indicating the file system should only be  mounted
                          using production-level file system code.

       -f     Force  the  tune2fs  operation to complete even in the face of errors.  This option is
              useful when removing the has_journal file system feature from a file system which  has
              an  external  journal  (or is corrupted such that it appears to have an external jour‐
              nal), but that external journal is not available.   If the file system appears to  re‐
              quire journal replay, the -f flag must be specified twice to proceed.

              WARNING:  Removing  an  external  journal from a file system which was not cleanly un‐
              mounted without first replaying the external journal can result in  severe  data  loss
              and file system corruption.

       -g group
              Set  the group which can use the reserved file system blocks.  The group parameter can
              be a numerical gid or a group name.  If a group name is given, it is  converted  to  a
              numerical gid before it is stored in the superblock.

       -i  interval-between-checks[d|m|w]
              Adjust the maximal time between two file system checks.  No suffix or d will interpret
              the  number  interval-between-checks as days, m as months, and w as weeks.  A value of
              zero will disable the time-dependent checking.

              There are pros and cons to disabling these periodic checks; see the  discussion  under
              the -c (mount-count-dependent check) option for details.

       -I     Change the inode size used by the file system.   This requires rewriting the inode ta‐
              ble,  so  it  requires  that  the  file  system is checked for consistency first using
              e2fsck(8).  This operation can also take a while and the file system can be  corrupted
              and  data lost if it is interrupted while in the middle of converting the file system.
              Backing up the file system before changing inode size is recommended.

              File systems with an inode size of 128 bytes do not support timestamps beyond  January
              19,  2038.   Inodes  which  are  256 bytes or larger will support extended timestamps,
              project id's, and the ability to store some extended attributes in the inode table for
              improved performance.

       -j     Add an ext3 journal to the file system.  If the -J option is not  specified,  the  de‐
              fault  journal parameters will be used to create an appropriately sized journal (given
              the size of the file system) stored within the file system.  Note that you must be us‐
              ing a kernel which has ext3 support in order to actually make use of the journal.

              If this option is used to create a journal on a  mounted  file  system,  an  immutable
              file,  .journal,  will be created in the top-level directory of the file system, as it
              is the only safe way to create the journal inode while the  file  system  is  mounted.
              While the ext3 journal is visible, it is not safe to delete it, or modify it while the
              file  system is mounted; for this reason the file is marked immutable.  While checking
              unmounted file systems, e2fsck(8) will automatically move .journal files to the invis‐
              ible, reserved journal inode.  For all file systems except for the root  file  system,
              this  should  happen  automatically and naturally during the next reboot cycle.  Since
              the root file system is mounted read-only, e2fsck(8) must be run from a rescue  floppy
              in order to effect this transition.

              On  some  distributions,  such  as  Debian,  if an initial ramdisk is used, the initrd
              scripts will automatically convert an ext2 root file system to ext3 if the  /etc/fstab
              file specifies the ext3 file system for the root file system in order to avoid requir‐
              ing the use of a rescue floppy to add an ext3 journal to the root file system.

       -J journal-options
              Override the default ext3 journal parameters. Journal options are comma separated, and
              may  take an argument using the equals ('=')  sign.  The following journal options are
              supported:

                   size=journal-size
                          Create a journal stored in the file system of size journal-size megabytes.
                          The size of the journal must be at least 1024 file  system  blocks  (i.e.,
                          1MB  if using 1k blocks, 4MB if using 4k blocks, etc.)  and may be no more
                          than 10,240,000 file system blocks.  There must be enough  free  space  in
                          the file system to create a journal of that size.

                   fast_commit_size=fast-commit-size
                          Create  an  additional  fast  commit journal area of size fast-commit-size
                          kilobytes.  This option is only valid if fast_commit feature is enabled on
                          the file system. If this option is not specified and if  fast_commit  fea‐
                          ture  is  turned  on,  fast commit area size defaults to journal-size / 64
                          megabytes. The total size of the journal with fast_commit feature  set  is
                          journal-size  +  (  fast-commit-size  * 1024) megabytes. The total journal
                          size may be no more than 10,240,000 file system blocks or half  the  total
                          file system size (whichever is smaller).

                   location=journal-location
                          Specify  the  location  of the journal.  The argument journal-location can
                          either be specified as a block number, or if the number has a units suffix
                          (e.g., 'M', 'G', etc.) interpret it as the offset from  the  beginning  of
                          the file system.

                   device=external-journal
                          Attach  the  file  system to the journal block device located on external-
                          journal.  The external journal must have been already  created  using  the
                          command

                          mke2fs -O journal_dev external-journal

                          Note  that  external-journal must be formatted with the same block size as
                          file systems which will be using it.  In addition, while there is  support
                          for  attaching  multiple  file  systems  to a single external journal, the
                          Linux kernel and e2fsck(8) do not currently support shared external  jour‐
                          nals yet.

                          Instead of specifying a device name directly, external-journal can also be
                          specified  by either LABEL=label or UUID=UUID to locate the external jour‐
                          nal by either the volume label or UUID stored in the  ext2  superblock  at
                          the  start  of the journal.  Use dumpe2fs(8) to display a journal device's
                          volume label and UUID.  See also the -L option of tune2fs(8).

              Only one of the size or device options can be given for a file system.

       -l     List the contents of the file system superblock, including the current values  of  the
              parameters that can be set via this program.

       -L volume-label
              Set  the  volume  label of the file system.  Ext2 file system labels can be at most 16
              characters long; if volume-label is longer than 16 characters, tune2fs  will  truncate
              it and print a warning.  For other file systems that support online label manipulation
              and  are  mounted  tune2fs  will work as well, but it will not attempt to truncate the
              volume-label at all.   The  volume  label  can  be  used  by  mount(8),  fsck(8),  and
              /etc/fstab(5)  (and  possibly  others)  by  specifying LABEL=volume-label instead of a
              block special device name like /dev/hda5.

       -m reserved-blocks-percentage
              Set the percentage of the file system  which  may  only  be  allocated  by  privileged
              processes.    Reserving  some  number  of  file  system  blocks  for use by privileged
              processes is done to avoid file system fragmentation, and  to  allow  system  daemons,
              such  as  syslogd(8), to continue to function correctly after non-privileged processes
              are prevented from writing to the file system.  Normally, the  default  percentage  of
              reserved blocks is 5%.

       -M last-mounted-directory
              Set the last-mounted directory for the file system.

       -o [^]mount-option[,...]
              Set  or  clear  the indicated default mount options in the file system.  Default mount
              options can be overridden by mount options specified either in /etc/fstab(5) or on the
              command line arguments to mount(8).  Older kernels may not support  this  feature;  in
              particular,  kernels  which  predate  2.4.20  will almost certainly ignore the default
              mount options field in the superblock.

              More than one mount option can be cleared or set by separating features  with  commas.
              Mount  options  prefixed with a caret character ('^') will be cleared in the file sys‐
              tem's superblock; mount options without a prefix character or  prefixed  with  a  plus
              character ('+') will be added to the file system.

              The following mount options can be set or cleared using tune2fs:

                   debug  Enable debugging code for this file system.

                   bsdgroups
                          Emulate  BSD behavior when creating new files: they will take the group-id
                          of the directory in which they were created.  The standard System V behav‐
                          ior is the default, where newly created files take on  the  fsgid  of  the
                          current  process,  unless  the  directory has the setgid bit set, in which
                          case it takes the gid from the parent directory, and also gets the  setgid
                          bit set if it is a directory itself.

                   user_xattr
                          Enable user-specified extended attributes.

                   acl    Enable Posix Access Control Lists.

                   uid16  Disables  32-bit  UIDs  and GIDs.  This is for interoperability with older
                          kernels which only store and expect 16-bit values.

                   journal_data
                          When the file system is mounted with journaling  enabled,  all  data  (not
                          just  metadata)  is committed into the journal prior to being written into
                          the main file system.

                   journal_data_ordered
                          When the file system is mounted  with  journaling  enabled,  all  data  is
                          forced  directly  out  to the main file system prior to its metadata being
                          committed to the journal.

                   journal_data_writeback
                          When the file system is mounted with journaling enabled, data may be writ‐
                          ten into the main file system after its metadata has been committed to the
                          journal.  This may increase throughput, however, it may allow old data  to
                          appear in files after a crash and journal recovery.

                   nobarrier
                          The  file  system  will  be mounted with barrier operations in the journal
                          disabled.  (This option is currently only supported by the ext4 file  sys‐
                          tem driver in 2.6.35+ kernels.)

                   block_validity
                          The  file  system  will be mounted with the block_validity option enabled,
                          which causes extra checks to be performed after reading  or  writing  from
                          the  file  system.   This  prevents corrupted metadata blocks from causing
                          file system damage by overwriting parts of the inode table or block  group
                          descriptors.  This comes at the cost of increased memory and CPU overhead,
                          so  it  is enabled only for debugging purposes.  (This option is currently
                          only supported by the ext4 file system driver in 2.6.35+ kernels.)

                   discard
                          The file system will be mounted with the discard mount option.  This  will
                          cause the file system driver to attempt to use the trim/discard feature of
                          some  storage devices (such as SSD's and thin-provisioned drives available
                          in some enterprise storage arrays)  to  inform  the  storage  device  that
                          blocks belonging to deleted files can be reused for other purposes.  (This
                          option  is  currently  only  supported  by  the ext4 file system driver in
                          2.6.35+ kernels.)

                   nodelalloc
                          The file system will be mounted with the nodelalloc  mount  option.   This
                          will  disable  the  delayed allocation feature.  (This option is currently
                          only supported by the ext4 file system driver in 2.6.35+ kernels.)

       -O [^]feature[,...]
              Set or clear the indicated file system features (options) in the  file  system.   More
              than one file system feature can be cleared or set by separating features with commas.
              File System features prefixed with a caret character ('^') will be cleared in the file
              system's  superblock; file system features without a prefix character or prefixed with
              a plus character ('+') will be added to the file system.  For a  detailed  description
              of the file system features, please see the man page ext4(5).

              The following file system features can be set or cleared using tune2fs:

                   64bit  Enable the file system to be larger than 2^32 blocks.

                   casefold
                          Enable  support  for  file  system  level  casefolding.  The option can be
                          cleared only if filesystem has no directories with F attribute.

                   dir_index
                          Use hashed b-trees to speed up lookups for large directories.

                   dir_nlink
                          Allow more than 65000 subdirectories per directory.

                   ea_inode
                          Allow the value of each extended attribute to be placed in the data blocks
                          of a separate inode if necessary, increasing the limit  on  the  size  and
                          number  of  extended attributes per file.  Tune2fs currently only supports
                          setting this file system feature.

                   encrypt
                          Enable support for file system level encryption.  Tune2fs  currently  only
                          supports setting this file system feature.

                   extent Enable the use of extent trees to store the location of data blocks in in‐
                          odes.  Tune2fs currently only supports setting this file system feature.

                   extra_isize
                          Enable the extended inode fields used by ext4.

                   filetype
                          Store file type information in directory entries.

                   flex_bg
                          Allow  bitmaps and inode tables for a block group to be placed anywhere on
                          the storage media.  Tune2fs will not reorganize the location of the  inode
                          tables  and  allocation  bitmaps,  as  mke2fs(8) will do when it creates a
                          freshly formatted file system with flex_bg enabled.

                   has_journal
                          Use a journal to ensure file system consistency even across unclean  shut‐
                          downs.   Setting the file system feature is equivalent to using the -j op‐
                          tion.

                   fast_commit
                          Enable fast commit journaling feature to improve fsync latency.

                   large_dir
                          Increase the limit on the number of files  per  directory.   Tune2fs  cur‐
                          rently only supports setting this file system feature.

                   huge_file
                          Support files larger than 2 terabytes in size.

                   large_file
                          File System can contain files that are greater than 2GB.

                   metadata_csum
                          Store a checksum to protect the contents in each metadata block.

                   metadata_csum_seed
                          Allow  the  file  system  to  store  the metadata checksum seed in the su‐
                          perblock, enabling the administrator to change the UUID of a  file  system
                          using the metadata_csum feature while it is mounted.

                   mmp    Enable or disable multiple mount protection (MMP) feature.

                   project
                          Enable project ID tracking.  This is used for project quota tracking.

                   quota  Enable internal file system quota inodes.

                   read-only
                          Force the kernel to mount the file system read-only.

                   resize_inode
                          Reserve  space so the block group descriptor table may grow in the future.
                          Tune2fs only supports clearing this file system feature.

                   sparse_super
                          Limit the number of backup superblocks to save space on  large  file  sys‐
                          tems.  Tune2fs currently only supports setting this file system feature.

                   stable_inodes
                          Prevent  the  file system from being shrunk or having its UUID changed, in
                          order to allow the use of specialized encryption settings that make use of
                          the inode numbers and UUID.  Tune2fs currently only supports setting  this
                          file system feature.

                   uninit_bg
                          Allow  the  kernel  to  initialize bitmaps and inode tables lazily, and to
                          keep a high watermark for the unused inodes in a file  system,  to  reduce
                          e2fsck(8)  time.   The  first  e2fsck run after enabling this feature will
                          take the full time, but subsequent e2fsck runs will take only  a  fraction
                          of the original time, depending on how full the file system is.

                   verity Enable  support  for  verity protected files.  Tune2fs currently only sup‐
                          ports setting this file system feature.

              After setting or clearing sparse_super, uninit_bg, filetype, or resize_inode file sys‐
              tem features, the file system may require being checked using e2fsck(8) to return  the
              file  system  to a consistent state.  Tune2fs will print a message requesting that the
              system administrator run e2fsck(8) if necessary.  After setting the dir_index feature,
              e2fsck -D can be run to convert existing directories to the hashed B-tree format.  En‐
              abling certain file system features may prevent the file system from being mounted  by
              kernels which do not support those features.  In particular, the uninit_bg and flex_bg
              features are only supported by the ext4 file system.

       -r reserved-blocks-count
              Set the number of reserved file system blocks.

       -Q quota-options
              Sets  'quota'  feature  on  the  superblock and works on the quota files for the given
              quota type. Quota options could be one or more of the following:

                   [^]usrquota
                          Sets/clears user quota inode in the superblock.

                   [^]grpquota
                          Sets/clears group quota inode in the superblock.

                   [^]prjquota
                          Sets/clears project quota inode in the superblock.

       -T time-last-checked
              Set the time the file system was last checked using e2fsck.  The time  is  interpreted
              using the current (local) timezone.  This can be useful in scripts which use a Logical
              Volume Manager to make a consistent snapshot of a file system, and then check the file
              system  during  off  hours to make sure it hasn't been corrupted due to hardware prob‐
              lems, etc.  If the file system was clean, then this option can be used to set the last
              checked time on the original file system.  The format of time-last-checked is the  in‐
              ternational  date format, with an optional time specifier, i.e.  YYYYMMDD[HH[MM[SS]]].
              The keyword now is also accepted, in which case the last checked time will be  set  to
              the current time.

       -u user
              Set the user who can use the reserved file system blocks.  user can be a numerical uid
              or a user name.  If a user name is given, it is converted to a numerical uid before it
              is stored in the superblock.

       -U UUID
              Set  the  universally unique identifier (UUID) of the file system to UUID.  The format
              of  the  UUID  is  a  series  of  hex  digits  separated  by   hyphens,   like   this:
              "c1b9d5a2-f162-11cf-9ece-0020afc76f16".   The  UUID  parameter  may also be one of the
              following:

                   clear  clear the file system UUID

                   random generate a new randomly-generated UUID

                   time   generate a new time-based UUID

              The UUID may be used by mount(8), fsck(8), and /etc/fstab(5) (and possibly others)  by
              specifying UUID=uuid instead of a block special device name like /dev/hda1.

              See uuidgen(8) for more information.  If the system does not have a good random number
              generator  such as /dev/random or /dev/urandom, tune2fs will automatically use a time-
              based UUID instead of a randomly-generated UUID.

       -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 tune2fs-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.

BUGS
       We haven't found any bugs yet.  That doesn't mean there aren't any...

AUTHOR
       tune2fs was written by Remy Card <Remy.Card AT linux.org>.  It is currently being maintained  by
       Theodore Ts'o <tytso AT alum.edu>.  tune2fs uses the ext2fs library written by Theodore Ts'o
       <tytso AT mit.edu>.   This  manual  page  was written by Christian Kuhtz <chk AT data-hh.DE>.
       Time-dependent checking was added by Uwe Ohse <uwe AT tirka.de>.

AVAILABILITY
       tune2fs is part of the e2fsprogs  package  and  is  available  from  http://e2fsprogs.source‐
       forge.net.

SEE ALSO
       debugfs(8), dumpe2fs(8), e2fsck(8), mke2fs(8), ext4(5)

E2fsprogs version 1.47.0                    February 2023                                 TUNE2FS(8)
tune2fs(8)
NAME SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION OPTIONS
-c max-mount-counts -C mount-count -e error-behavior -E extended-options -f Force the tune2fs operation to complete even in the face of errors. This option is -g group -i interval-between-checks[d|m|w] -I Change the inode size used by the file system. This requires rewriting the inode ta‐ -j Add an ext3 journal to the file system. If the -J option is not specified, the de‐ -J journal-options -l List the contents of the file system superblock, including the current values of the -L volume-label -m reserved-blocks-percentage -M last-mounted-directory -o [^]mount-option[,...] -O [^]feature[,...] -r reserved-blocks-count -Q quota-options -T time-last-checked -u user -U UUID -z undo_file
BUGS AUTHOR AVAILABILITY SEE ALSO

Generated by phpman v4.10.0-7-g98e9fd5 · Markdown · JSON · MCP Author: Che Dong Under GNU General Public License
2026-09-15 23:03 @216.73.216.252
CrawledBy Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)
Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!Valid CSS!

^_top_^