ext2/3 Free block bitmap

x_terminat_or_3 · 04-01-2007, 02:31 PM

Hi all

I keep seeing/hearing that the ext2/3 file system uses a bitmap to find out what inodes are located/free

Is there any way to extract this bitmap and see this for myself?

Thanks

Andy

btmiller · 04-01-2007, 03:30 PM

The e2image program will dump out the bitmap (at least according to the debugfs man page). Perhaps the best way is to use e2image and then use debugfs to look at the resultant image file. Be very careful when using debugfs and only use it on an image file. You can easily destroy a file system with improper use of debugfs. Read the man page for more info.

x_terminat_or_3 · 04-01-2007, 03:36 PM

Managed to make the image with e2image but nowhere in debugfs does it say anything about extracting the bitmap

PietroBattiston · 12-11-2010, 05:08 AM

I guess what you (and anyone stumbling, as me, on this page from Google) search is

sudo dumpe2fs /dev/diskpath

Pietro