1 ext2ed - The extended-2 filesystem editor, version e2fsprogs
4 This version of ext2ed has been modified and updated by Theodore Ts'o
5 for inclusion with the e2fsprogs package. It now builds with modern
6 ncurses and I've fixed various small bugs, particular in the redrawing
7 and resizing functions.
9 It is currently not built by default -- the top-level e2fsprogs
10 Makefile doesn't recurse into this directory. This is because ext2ed
11 has a number of VERY SERIOUS shortcomings:
13 1) It doesn't work on filesystems bigger than 2GB
15 2) It assumes that all's the world an Intel, and assumes that
16 everything is in Intel (little-endian) byte order.
18 Fixing either of these problems would be non-trivial, and so I at this
19 point DO NOT RECOMMEND that distributions try to include this program,
20 even as modified and updated in e2fsprogs. This especially goes for
21 Debian, where the Debian maintainer for e2fsprogs has a history of
22 making authorized changes to e2fsprogs to include programs that aren't
23 supported, and then starts bugging me with bug reports. YES I KNOW.
24 THIS PROGRAM HAS HORRIBLE SHORTCOMINGS. IT IS INCLUDED HERE ONLY
25 BECAUSE IT'S A CONVENIENT WAY FOR (FOR E2FSPROGS DEVELOPERS ON INTEL
26 MACHINES) TO GENERATE TEST CASES BY SELECTIVELY CORRUPTING
27 FILESYSTEMS. I WILL NOT SUPPORT THIS PROGRAM FOR USE BY GENERAL USERS
28 SO PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE IT IN A DISTRIBUTION.
30 I have currently disabled the use of GNU Readline in this program,
31 because readline and ncurses really don't play well together at all.
32 Readline assumes that it can write arbitrary text to the screen
33 (especially when it tries to print out a completion list), which just
34 doesn't work with ncurses. Fixing this so they would work together
35 would require wholesale changes to readline.
41 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
43 ext2ed - The extended-2 filesystem editor, version 0.2
44 ------------------------------------------------------
46 This is version 0.2 of ext2ed - The extended-2 filesystem editor.
48 Modifications on Apr 5 2001
49 This is minor bug fixes to ext2ed, as of April 2001.
50 It supports modern ext2 version that has file type in directory structure
51 and fixes the missunderstanding between ncurses and
54 I first applied patches from Redhat except the one for readline that
55 rewrote a readline behavior.
57 Globals diffs between version 0.1 and 0.2 is stored in file :
60 Christian Bac <Christian.Bac@nt-evry.fr>
62 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
67 ext2ed's documentation consists of three documents:
70 2. Technical overview of the ext2 filesystem.
71 3. The EXT2ED design and implementation document.
73 Those documents are available in the doc directory, in linuxdoc-sgml and
76 The documentation is also available online at:
78 http://tochnapc2.technion.ac.il
80 under the ext2ed section.
85 ext2ed requires the kernel sources and the readline and ncurses packages.
86 Please edit the makefile if you are using an "old" version of ncurses (See the
87 details below) or if gcc can't find the various header files and libraries.
89 To install, simply issue a 'make' command to compile and a 'make install'
90 command to install. I have also included an already compiled linux a.out
96 ext2ed uses the ncurses library for terminal output. It is very important
97 that ncurses will be properly installed on your system:
99 1. Old versions of ncurses (around 1.8.5) need the OLD_NCURSES compile
100 time option in EXT2ED.
102 At least from 1.9.2c, this flag should not be used. I would recommend
103 upgrading the ncurses library to the newer versions.
105 2. ncurses uses its own terminfo database rather then the termcap file.
106 It is important that the terminfo database will be found by ncurses.
107 If this is not the case, you will see on startup some lines which
108 refer to /etc/termcap. This will mean that there is a problem with
109 the terminfo database.
111 3. Newer versions of ncurses (and the 1.3 series of the kernel) describe
112 the linux console in the entry 'linux' and not 'console', as it was
113 before. If you run ext2ed in the linux console, you should either
114 set your TERM environment variable to 'linux' or link
115 l/linux to c/console in the terminfo database.
117 4. The percompiled binary was linked with ncurses 1.9.4 and will search
118 for the terminfo database on /usr/local/lib/terminfo. If you are
119 using it, and your 1.9.4 compatible terminfo database is not on the
120 directory above, use the TERMINFO environment variable to specify
121 an alternate location.
126 For those of you who don't like reading lengthy articles, here are a few
129 1. Don't use ext2ed to change a mounted filesystem !
131 Using ext2ed in read-only mode on a mounted filesystem can be allowed
132 by using the configuration file option 'AllowMountedRead on'. However,
133 note that the displayed data will be unreliable.
135 2. ext2ed currently can't handle filesystems bigger than 2 GB. I am
136 sorry for the inconvenience. This will hopefully be fixed in future
139 3. Before running ext2ed, edit the configuration file
140 /var/lib/ext2ed/ext2ed.conf to suit your needs. The various
141 configuration options are documented there.
143 4. Use the 'setdevice' command to open an ext2 filesystem.
144 e.g. 'setdevice /dev/hda1'.
146 5. If the filesystem is an ext2 filesystem and ext2ed fails to
147 autodetect this, use the 'ForceExt2 on' configuration file option.
149 6. The filesystem will always be opened in read-only mode. Feel free to
150 experiment, but take care with the 'enablewrite' command.
152 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
154 Feel free to send me feedback with anything regarding to ext2ed.
158 Gadi Oxman <tgud@tochnapc2.technion.ac.il>
159 Haifa, August 23 1995