e2fsprogs (sometimes called the e2fs programs) is a set of utilities for maintaining the ext2, ext3 and ext4 file systems. Since those file systems are often the default for Linux distributions, it is commonly considered to be essential software. List of utilities Included with e2fsprogs, ordered by ASCIIbetical order, are: badblocks search a device for bad blocks blkid locate/print block device attributes chattr change file attributes on a Linux file system debugfs used to manually view or modify internal structures of the file system dumpe2fs which prints superblock and block group information. e2freefrag report free space fragmentation information e2fsck an fsck program that checks for and corrects inconsistencies e2image save critical ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem metadata to a file e2label change the label on an ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem e2undo replay an undo log for an ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem e4defrag online defragmenter for ext4 filesystem filefrag report on file fragmentation findfs find a filesystem by label or UUID findsuper quick hacked up program to find ext2 superblocks logsave save the output of a command in a logfile lsattr list file attributes on a Linux second extended file system mke2fs used for creating ext2, ext3 and ext4 file systems resize2fs which can expand and shrink ext2, ext3 and ext4 file systems. On-line support was added in 2006. tune2fs used to modify file system parameters Many of these utilities are based on the libext2fs library. Usage Despite what its name might suggest, e2fsprogs works not only with ext2, but also with ext3 and ext4. Although ext3's journaling capability can reduce the need to use e2fsck, it is sometimes still necessary to help protect against kernel bugs or bad hardware. With ext4 the e2fsck runtime should come down considerably, as can be seen from the graph. As the userspace companion for the ext2, ext3, and ext4 drivers in the Linux kernel, the e2fsprogs are most commonly used with Linux. However, they have been ported to other systems, such as FreeBSD and Darwin. See also mkfs dd — convert and copy a file fdisk — examine and write partition table fsck — file system check mkisofs — make an iso file system mount — mount a file system parted — partition manager References External links e2fsprogs git repository Design and Implementation of the Second Extended Filesystem Free software programmed in C Linux file system-related software Unix file system-related software