Aug 19th, 2012
The resize2fs program
resize2fs 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
Usage: resize2fs [-d debug_flags] [-f] [-F] [-M] [-P] [-p] device [new_size]
DESCRIPTION
The resize2fs program will resize ext2, ext3, or ext4 file systems. It can be used to enlarge or shrink an unmounted file system located on device. If the filesystem is mounted, it can be used to expand the size of the mounted filesystem, assuming the kernel supports on-line resizing. (As of this writing, the Linux 2.6 kernel supports on-line resize for filesystems mounted using ext3 and ext4.).
The resize2fs program does not manipulate the size of partitions. If you wish to enlarge a filesystem, you must make sure you can expand the size of the underlying partition first. This can be done using fdisk(8) by deleting the partition and recreating it with a larger size or using lvextend(8), if you’re using the logical volume manager lvm(8).
When recreating the partition, make sure you create it with the same starting disk cylinder as before! Otherwise, the resize operation will certainly not work, and you may lose your entire filesystem. After running fdisk(8), run resize2fs to resize the ext2 filesystem to use all of the space in the newly enlarged partition.
If you wish to shrink an ext2 partition, first use resize2fs to shrink the size of filesystem. Then you may use fdisk(8) to shrink the size of the partition. When shrinking the size of the partition, make sure you do not make it smaller than the new size of the ext2 filesystem!
