E2IMAGE man page on OpenMandriva

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E2IMAGE(8)							    E2IMAGE(8)

NAME
       e2image - Save critical ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem metadata to a file

SYNOPSIS
       e2image [ -rsIQa ] device image-file

DESCRIPTION
       The  e2image  program will save critical ext2, ext3, or ext4 filesystem
       metadata located on device to a	file  specified	 by  image-file.   The
       image  file  may	 be  examined by dumpe2fs and debugfs, by using the -i
       option to those programs.  This can assist an expert in recovering cat‐
       astrophically  corrupted	 filesystems.	In  the future, e2fsck will be
       enhanced to be able to use the image file to help recover a badly  dam‐
       aged filesystem.

       If image-file is -, then the output of e2image will be sent to standard
       output, so that the output can be piped to  another  program,  such  as
       gzip(1).	  (Note	 that this is currently only supported when creating a
       raw image file using the -r option, since the  process  of  creating  a
       normal  image  file, or QCOW2 image currently requires random access to
       the file, which cannot be done using a  pipe.   This  restriction  will
       hopefully be lifted in a future version of e2image.)

       It  is a very good idea to create image files for all of filesystems on
       a system and save the partition layout (which can  be  generated	 using
       the  fdisk  -l  command)	 at regular intervals --- at boot time, and/or
       every week or so.  The image file should be stored on  some  filesystem
       other  than  the filesystem whose data it contains, to ensure that this
       data is accessible in the case where the filesystem has been badly dam‐
       aged.

       To save disk space, e2image creates the image file as a sparse file, or
       in QCOW2 format.	 Hence, if the sparse image file needs to be copied to
       another	location, it should either be compressed first or copied using
       the --sparse=always option to the GNU version of	 cp.   This  does  not
       apply to the QCOW2 image, which is not sparse.

       The  size  of  an  ext2 image file depends primarily on the size of the
       filesystems and how many inodes are in use.  For a typical 10  gigabyte
       filesystem,  with  200,000 inodes in use out of 1.2 million inodes, the
       image file will be approximately 35 megabytes; a 4 gigabyte  filesystem
       with  15,000  inodes  in	 use  out of 550,000 inodes will result in a 3
       megabyte image file.  Image files tend to  be  quite  compressible;  an
       image  file taking up 32 megabytes of space on disk will generally com‐
       press down to 3 or 4 megabytes.

RESTORING FILESYSTEM METADATA USING AN IMAGE FILE
       The -I option will cause e2image to install the metadata stored in  the
       image  file back to the device.	It can be used to restore the filesys‐
       tem metadata back to the device in emergency situations.

       WARNING!!!!  The -I option should only be used as a desperation measure
       when  other  alternatives  have	failed.	 If the filesystem has changed
       since the image file was created, data will be lost.  In	 general,  you
       should  make  a	full image backup of the filesystem first, in case you
       wish to try other recovery strategies afterwards.

RAW IMAGE FILES
       The -r option will create a raw image file instead of  a	 normal	 image
       file.   A  raw image file differs from a normal image file in two ways.
       First, the filesystem metadata is placed in the proper position so that
       e2fsck,	dumpe2fs,  debugfs,  etc. can be run directly on the raw image
       file.  In order to minimize the amount of disk space consumed by a  raw
       image  file,  the file is created as a sparse file.  (Beware of copying
       or compressing/decompressing this file with utilities that don't under‐
       stand  how to create sparse files; the file will become as large as the
       filesystem itself!)  Secondly, the raw image file also  includes	 indi‐
       rect  blocks  and  directory blocks, which the standard image file does
       not have, although this may change in the future.

       Raw image files are sometimes used  when	 sending  filesystems  to  the
       maintainer  as  part  of	 bug  reports to e2fsprogs.  When used in this
       capacity, the recommended command is as follows (replace hda1 with  the
       appropriate device):

	    e2image -r /dev/hda1 - | bzip2 > hda1.e2i.bz2

       This  will only send the metadata information, without any data blocks.
       However, the filenames in the directory blocks can still reveal	infor‐
       mation  about  the contents of the filesystem that the bug reporter may
       wish to keep confidential.  To address this concern, the -s option  can
       be  specified.	This  will cause e2image to scramble directory entries
       and zero out any unused portions of the directory blocks before writing
       the  image file.	 However, the -s option will prevent analysis of prob‐
       lems related to hash-tree indexed directories.

       Note that this will work even if you substitute "/dev/hda1" for another
       raw disk image, or QCOW2 image previously created by e2image.

QCOW2 IMAGE FILES
       The  -Q	option	will create a QCOW2 image file instead of a normal, or
       raw image file.	A QCOW2 image contains all  the	 information  the  raw
       image  does,  however  unlike the raw image it is not sparse. The QCOW2
       image minimize the amount of disk space by storing data in special for‐
       mat  with  pack data closely together, hence avoiding holes while still
       minimizing size.

       In order to send filesystem to the maintainer as a part of  bug	report
       to e2fsprogs, use following commands (replace hda1 with the appropriate
       device):

	    e2image -Q /dev/hda1 hda1.qcow2
	    bzip2 -z hda1.qcow2

       This will only send the metadata information, without any data  blocks.
       However,	 the filenames in the directory blocks can still reveal infor‐
       mation about the contents of the filesystem that the bug	 reporter  may
       wish  to keep confidential.  To address this concern, the -s option can
       be specified.  This will cause e2image to  scramble  directory  entries
       and zero out any unused portions of the directory blocks before writing
       the image file.	However, the -s option will prevent analysis of	 prob‐
       lems related to hash-tree indexed directories.

       Note that QCOW2 image created by e2image is regular QCOW2 image and can
       be processed by tools aware of QCOW2 format such as for	example	 qemu-
       img.

       You can convert a qcow2 image into a raw image with:

	    e2image -r hda1.qcow2 hda1.raw

       This  can  be  useful  to  write a qcow2 image containing all data to a
       sparse image file where it can be loop mounted, or to a disk partition.
       Note that this may not work with qcow2 images not generated by e2image.

INCLUDING DATA
       Normally e2image only includes fs metadata, not regular file data.  The
       -a option can be specified to include all  data.	  This	will  give  an
       image that is suitable to use to clone the entire FS or for backup pur‐
       poses.  Note that this option only works with the raw or QCOW2 formats.

AUTHOR
       e2image was written by Theodore Ts'o (tytso@mit.edu).

AVAILABILITY
       e2image is  part	 of  the  e2fsprogs  package  and  is  available  from
       http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net.

SEE ALSO
       dumpe2fs(8), debugfs(8)

E2fsprogs version 1.42.8	   June 2013			    E2IMAGE(8)
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