A set of command-line utilities for manipulating EXT filesystems under Linux OSes
E2fsprogs (also known as the Ext2 Filesystem Utilities) is an open source software that provides Linux users with a neat collection of command-line utilities for manipulating all types of EXT filesystem under any Linux-based operating system.
Comprises of several command-line tools
The software is comprised of several command-line programs and it was initially created to support only the EXT2 filesystem. However, because the EXT file system has evolved a lot in the last 10 years or so, the program now supports the EXT3 and EXT4 variants of the acclaimed filesystem
EXT4 is the latest version of the EXT file system and was initially announced back in 2008 as part of the Linux 2.6.19 kernel. It supports very large volumes, it’s backward compatible with the EXT2 and EXT3 filesystems, and brings improved timestamps.
Can be used to create, resize and optimize EXT filesystems
E2fsprogs includes e2fsck for checking disk drives and automatically correct inconsistencies, mke2fs for creating EXT2, EXT3 and EXT4 filesystems, resize2fs for shrinking or expanding file systems, tune2fs for modifying file system parameters, as well as dumpe2fs for printing block group and superblock information.
The application also includes the debugfs tool for manually modifying and viewing filesystem’s internal structures, filefrag for reporting file fragmentation, logsave for saving a command’s output to a specific logfile, e2undo for replaying an undo log, and e2label for changing labels.
In addition, the findfs tool will allow users to find a filesystem by UUID or label, badblocks lets you search disk drives for bad blocks, blkid can be used to print and locate block device attributes, e2freefrag reports free space fragmentation info, and chattr changes file attributes.
Lastly, e2image can be used for saving critical metadata to a file, e4defrag can defragment EXT4 filesystems online, findsuper finds EXT2 superblocks, and lsattr lists file attributes on EXT2 filesystems.
Bottom line
E2fsprogs is definitely an important and essential utility for any Linux-based operating system. Without it, you won’t be able to create, repair, shrink or expand EXT filesystems.
