After upgrading a Debian system from 5.0 to 6.0 (Lenny to Sqeeze), how do I go about upgrading the root filesystem (which in this case is also boot) from ext3 to ext4?
2 Answers
This was no big deal at all, here's what I did:
- Edit
/etc/fstab, replacing "ext3" with "ext4" for my root filesystem. (I also removed "barrier=1", which is now the default on ext4.) - Reboot into single user mode with read only root filesystem.
- Run
tune2fs -O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index /dev/DEV - Reboot, again into single user mode with read only root filesystem. (Observe some mount warnings.)
- Run
e2fsck -fDC0 /dev/DEVto patch up the filesystem. - Reboot normally.
Most of this was taken from here.
-
FYI the EXT4 Howto URL is now ext4.wiki.kernel.org/articles/e/x/t/Ext4_Howto_d00b.html– zarkdavCommented Nov 11, 2011 at 10:04
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2You'll probably want to convert the files and directories on the filesystem to use "extents" too, by using
chattr +e fileon everything. Commented Jul 20, 2012 at 22:16
additionaly to pauldoo's answer
- you might need to add
rootfstype=ext4to kernel boot options - if you've converted a fairly old ext2 to ext4, it might be lacking online resize capability with the only solution - create new ext4 fs and then move your files there (sad, but true)
- if you've converted a fairly old ext2 to ext4, you might notice a .journal file at the root. it does not appear on other mount points, since
fsck -fhides it automatically. Sadly it canot do the same to / mount point - you need live cd or any other running system to hide this.journalnode
PS still actual for wheezy
