Ext2

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The Second Extended Filesystem (ext2fs) is a rewrite of the original Extended Filesystem and as such, is also based around the concept of "inodes." Ext2 served as the de facto filesystem of Linux for nearly a decade from the early 1990s to the early 2000s when it was superseded by the journaling file systems ext3 and ReiserFS. It has native support for UNIX ownership / access rights, symbolic- and hard-links, and other properties that are common among UNIX-like operating systems. Organizationally, it divides disk space up into groups called "block groups." Having these groups results in distribution of data across the disk which helps to minimize head movement as well as the impact of fragmentation. Further, some (if not all) groups are required to contain backups of important data that can be used to rebuild the file system in the event of disaster.

Note: Most of the information here is based off of work done by Dave Poirier on the ext2-doc project (see the links section) which is graciously released under the GNU Free Documentation License. Be sure to buy him a beer the next time you see him.

Contents

Basic Concepts

Important Note: All values are little-endian unless otherwise specified

What is a Block?

The Ext2 file system divides up disk space into logical blocks of contiguous space. The size of blocks need not be the same size as the sector size of the disk the file system resides on. The size of blocks can be determined by reading the field starting at byte 24 in the Superblock.

What is a Block Group?

Blocks, along with inodes, are divided up into "block groups." These are nothing more than contiguous groups of blocks.

Each block group reserves a few of its blocks for special purposes such as:

  • A bitmap of free/allocated blocks within the group
  • A bitmap of allocated inodes within the group
  • A table of inode structures that belong to the group
  • Depending upon the revision of Ext2 used, some or all block groups may also contain a backup copy of the Superblock and the Block Group Descriptor Table.

What is an Inode?

An inode is a structure on the disk that represents a file, directory, symbolic link, etc. Inodes do not contain the data of the file / directory / etc. that they represent. Instead, they link to the blocks that actually contain the data. This lets the inodes themselves have a well-defined size which lets them be placed in easily indexed arrays. Each block group has an array of inodes it is responsible for, and conversely every inode within a file system belongs to one of such tables (and one of such block groups).

Superblock

The first step in implementing an Ext2 driver is to find, extract, and parse the superblock. The Superblock contains all information about the layout of the file system and possibly contains other important information like what optional features were used to create the file system. Once you have finished with the Superblock, the next step is to look at the Block Group Descriptor Table

Locating the Superblock

The Superblock is always located at byte 1024 from the beginning of the volume and is exactly 1024 bytes in length. For example, if the disk uses 512 byte sectors, the Superblock will begin at LBA 2 and will occupy all of sector 2 and 3.

Determining the Number of Block Groups

From the Superblock, extract the size of each block, the total number of inodes, the total number of blocks, the number of blocks per block group, and the number of inodes in each block group. From this information we can infer the number of block groups there are by:

  • Rounding up the total number of blocks divided by the number of blocks per block group
  • Rounding up the total number of inodes divided by the number of inodes per block group
  • Both (and check them against each other)

Base Superblock Fields

These fields are present in all versions of Ext2

Starting

Byte

Ending

Byte

Size

in Bytes

Field Description
0 3 4 Total number of inodes in file system
4 7 4 Total number of blocks in file system
8 11 4 Number of blocks reserved for superuser (see offset 80)
12 15 4 Total number of unallocated blocks
16 19 4 Total number of unallocated inodes
20 23 4 Block number of the block containing the superblock (also the starting block number, NOT always zero.)
24 27 4 log2 (block size) - 10. (In other words, the number to shift 1,024 to the left by to obtain the block size)
28 31 4 log2 (fragment size) - 10. (In other words, the number to shift 1,024 to the left by to obtain the fragment size)
32 35 4 Number of blocks in each block group
36 39 4 Number of fragments in each block group
40 43 4 Number of inodes in each block group
44 47 4 Last mount time (in POSIX time)
48 51 4 Last written time (in POSIX time)
52 53 2 Number of times the volume has been mounted since its last consistency check (fsck)
54 55 2 Number of mounts allowed before a consistency check (fsck) must be done
56 57 2 Ext2 signature (0xef53), used to help confirm the presence of Ext2 on a volume
58 59 2 File system state (see below)
60 61 2 What to do when an error is detected (see below)
62 63 2 Minor portion of version (combine with Major portion below to construct full version field)
64 67 4 POSIX time of last consistency check (fsck)
68 71 4 Interval (in POSIX time) between forced consistency checks (fsck)
72 75 4 Operating system ID from which the filesystem on this volume was created (see below)
76 79 4 Major portion of version (combine with Minor portion above to construct full version field)
80 81 2 User ID that can use reserved blocks
82 83 2 Group ID that can use reserved blocks

File System States

Value State Description
1 File system is clean
2 File system has errors

Error Handling Methods

Value Action to Take
1 Ignore the error (continue on)
2 Remount file system as read-only
3 Kernel panic

Creator Operating System IDs

Value Operating System
0 Linux
1 GNU HURD
2 MASIX (an operating system developed by Rémy Card, one of the developers of ext2)
3 FreeBSD
4 Other "Lites" (BSD4.4-Lite derivatives such as NetBSD, OpenBSD, XNU/Darwin, etc.)

Extended Superblock Fields

These fields are only present if Major version (specified in the base superblock fields), is greater than or equal to 1.

Starting

Byte

Ending

Byte

Size

in Bytes

Field Description
84 87 4 First non-reserved inode in file system. (In versions < 1.0, this is fixed as 11)
88 89 2 Size of each inode structure in bytes. (In versions < 1.0, this is fixed as 128)
90 91 2 Block group that this superblock is part of (if backup copy)
92 95 4 Optional features present (features that are not required to read or write, but usually result in a performance increase. see below)
96 99 4 Required features present (features that are required to be supported to read or write. see below)
100 103 4 Features that if not supported, the volume must be mounted read-only see below)
104 119 16 File system ID (what is output by blkid)
120 135 16 Volume name (C-style string: characters terminated by a 0 byte)
136 199 64 Path volume was last mounted to (C-style string: characters terminated by a 0 byte)
200 203 4 Compression algorithms used (see Required features above)
204 204 1 Number of blocks to preallocate for files
205 205 1 Number of blocks to preallocate for directories
206 207 2 (Unused)
208 223 16 Journal ID (same style as the File system ID above)
224 227 4 Journal inode
228 231 4 Journal device
232 235 4 Head of orphan inode list
236 1023 X (Unused)

Optional Feature Flags

These are optional features for an implementation to support, but offer performance or reliability gains to implementations that do support them.

Flag Value Description
0x0001 Preallocate some number of (contiguous?) blocks (see byte 205 in the superblock) to a directory when creating a new one (to reduce fragmentation?)
0x0002 AFS server inodes exist
0x0004 File system has a journal (Ext3)
0x0008 Inodes have extended attributes
0x0010 File system can resize itself for larger partitions
0x0020 Directories use hash index

Required Feature Flags

These features if present on a file system are required to be supported by an implementation in order to correctly read from or write to the file system.

Flag Value Description
0x0001 Compression is used
0x0002 Directory entries contain a type field
0x0004 File system needs to replay its journal
0x0008 File system uses a journal device

Read-Only Feature Flags

These features, if present on a file system, are required in order for an implementation to write to the file system, but are not required to read from the file system.

Flag Value Description
0x0001 Sparse superblocks and group descriptor tables
0x0002 File system uses a 64-bit file size
0x0004 Directory contents are stored in the form of a Binary Tree

Block Group Descriptor Table

The Block Group Descriptor Table contains a descriptor for each block group within the file system. The number of block groups within the file system, and correspondingly, the number of entries in the Block Group Descriptor Table, is described above. Each descriptor contains information regarding where important data structures for that group are located.

Locating the Block Group Descriptor Table

The table is located in the block immediately following the Superblock. So if the block size (determined from a field in the superblock) is 1024 bytes per block, the Block Group Descriptor Table will begin at block 2. For any other block size, it will begin at block 1. Remember that blocks are numbered starting at 0, and that block numbers don't usually correspond to physical block addresses.

Block Group Descriptor

A Block Group Descriptor contains information regarding where important data structures for that block group are located.

Starting

Byte

Ending

Byte

Size

in Bytes

Field Description
0 3 4 Block address of block usage bitmap
4 7 4 Block address of inode usage bitmap
8 11 4 Starting block address of inode table
12 13 2 Number of unallocated blocks in group
14 15 2 Number of unallocated inodes in group
16 17 2 Number of directories in group
18 31 X (Unused)

Inodes

Like blocks, each inode has a numerical address. It is extremely important to note that unlike block addresses, inode addresses start at 1.

With Ext2 versions prior to Major version 1, inodes 1 to 10 are reserved and should be in an allocated state. Starting with version 1, the first non-reserved inode is indicated via a field in the Superblock. Of the reserved inodes, number 2 subjectively has the most significance as it is used for the root directory.

Inodes have a fixed size of either 128 for version 0 Ext2 file systems, or as dictated by the field in the Superblock for version 1 file systems. All inodes reside in inode tables that belong to block groups. Therefore, looking up an inode is simply a matter of determining which block group it belongs to and indexing that block group's inode table.

Determining which Block Group contains an Inode

From an inode address (remember that they start at 1), we can determine which group the inode is in, by using the formula:

  block group = (inode – 1) / INODES_PER_GROUP

where INODES_PER_GROUP is a field in the Superblock

Finding an inode inside of a Block Group

Once we know which group an inode resides in, we can look up the actual inode by first retrieving that block group's inode table's starting address (see Block Group Descriptor above). The index of our inode in this block group's inode table can be determined by using the formula:

  index = (inode – 1) % INODES_PER_GROUP

where % denotes the Modulo operation and INODES_PER_GROUP is a field in the Superblock (the same field which was used to determine which block group the inode belongs to).

Next, we have to determine which block contains our inode. This is achieved from:

  containing block = (index * INODE_SIZE) / BLOCK_SIZE

where INODE_SIZE is either fixed at 128 if VERSION < 1 or defined by a field in the Superblock if VERSION >= 1.0, and BLOCK_SIZE is defined by a field in the Superblock.

Finally, mask and shift as necessary to extract only the inode data from the containing block.

Reading the contents of an inode

Each inode contains 12 direct pointers, one singly indirect pointer, one doubly indirect block pointer, and one triply indirect pointer. The direct space "overflows" into the singly indirect space, which overflows into the doubly indirect space, which overflows into the triply indirect space.

Direct Block Pointers: There are 12 direct block pointers. If valid, the value is non-zero. Each pointer is the block address of a block containing data for this inode.

Singly Indirect Block Pointer: If a file needs more than 12 blocks, a separate block is allocated to store the block addresses of the remaining data blocks needed to store its contents. This separate block is called an indirect block because it adds an extra step (a level of indirection) between an inode and its data. The block addresses stored in the block are all 32-bit, and the capacity of stored addresses in this block is a function of the block size. The address of this indirect block is stored in the inode in the "Singly Indirect Block Pointer" field.

Doubly Indirect Block Pointer: If a file has more blocks than can fit in the 12 direct pointers and the indirect block, a double indirect block is used. A double indirect block is an extension of the indirect block described above only now we have two intermediate blocks between the inode and data blocks. The inode structure has a "Doubly Indirect Block Pointer" field that points to this block if necessary.

Triply Indirect Block Pointer: Lastly, if a file needs still more space, it can use a triple indirect block. Again, this is an extension of the double indirect block. So, a triple indirect block contains addresses of double indirect blocks, which contain addresses of single indirect blocks, which contain address of data blocks. The inode structure has a "Triply Indirect Block Pointer" field that points to this block if present.

This image from Wikipedia illustrates what is described above pretty well.

Inode Data Structure

Starting

Byte

Ending

Byte

Size

in Bytes

Field Description
0 1 2 Type and Permissions (see below)
2 3 2 User ID
4 7 4 Lower 32 bits of size in bytes
8 11 4 Last Access Time (in POSIX time)
12 15 4 Creation Time (in POSIX time)
16 19 4 Last Modification time (in POSIX time)
20 23 4 Deletion time (in POSIX time)
24 25 2 Group ID
26 27 2 Count of hard links (directory entries) to this inode. When this reaches 0, the data blocks are marked as unallocated.
28 31 4 Count of disk sectors (not Ext2 blocks) in use by this inode, not counting the actual inode structure nor directory entries linking to the inode.
32 35 4 Flags (see below)
36 39 4 Operating System Specific value #1
40 43 4 Direct Block Pointer 0
44 47 4 Direct Block Pointer 1
48 51 4 Direct Block Pointer 2
52 55 4 Direct Block Pointer 3
56 59 4 Direct Block Pointer 4
60 63 4 Direct Block Pointer 5
64 67 4 Direct Block Pointer 6
68 71 4 Direct Block Pointer 7
72 75 4 Direct Block Pointer 8
76 79 4 Direct Block Pointer 9
80 83 4 Direct Block Pointer 10
84 87 4 Direct Block Pointer 11
88 91 4 Singly Indirect Block Pointer (Points to a block that is a list of block pointers to data)
92 95 4 Doubly Indirect Block Pointer (Points to a block that is a list of block pointers to Singly Indirect Blocks)
96 99 4 Triply Indirect Block Pointer (Points to a block that is a list of block pointers to Doubly Indirect Blocks)
100 103 4 Generation number (Primarily used for NFS)
104 107 4 In Ext2 version 0, this field is reserved. In version >= 1, Extended attribute block (File ACL).
108 111 4 In Ext2 version 0, this field is reserved. In version >= 1, Upper 32 bits of file size (if feature bit set) if it's a file, Directory ACL if it's a directory
112 115 4 Block address of fragment
116 127 12 Operating System Specific Value #2

Inode Type and Permissions

The type indicator occupies the top hex digit (bits 15 to 12) of this 16-bit field
Type value

in hex

Type Description
0x1000 FIFO
0x2000 Character device
0x4000 Directory
0x6000 Block device
0x8000 Regular file
0xA000 Symbolic link
0xC000 Unix socket
Permissions occupy the bottom 12 bits of this 16-bit field
Permission

value in hex

Permission

value in octal

Permission Description
0x001 00001 Other—execute permission
0x002 00002 Other—write permission
0x004 00004 Other—read permission
0x008 00010 Group—execute permission
0x010 00020 Group—write permission
0x020 00040 Group—read permission
0x040 00100 User—execute permission
0x080 00200 User—write permission
0x100 00400 User—read permission
0x200 01000 Sticky Bit
0x400 02000 Set group ID
0x800 04000 Set user ID

Inode Flags

Flag Value Description
0x00000001 Secure deletion (not used)
0x00000002 Keep a copy of data when deleted (not used)
0x00000004 File compression (not used)
0x00000008 Synchronous updates—new data is written immediately to disk
0x00000010 Immutable file (content cannot be changed)
0x00000020 Append only
0x00000040 File is not included in 'dump' command
0x00000080 Last accessed time should not updated
... (Reserved)
0x00010000 Hash indexed directory
0x00020000 AFS directory
0x00040000 Journal file data

OS Specific Value 1

Operating

System

How they use this field
Linux (reserved)
HURD "translator"?
MASIX (reserved)

OS Specific Value 2

Operating

System

How they use this field
Linux
Starting

Byte

Ending

Byte

Size

in Bytes

Field Description
116 116 1 Fragment number
117 117 1 Fragment size
118 119 2 (reserved)
120 121 2 High 16 bits of 32-bit User ID
122 123 2 High 16 bits of 32-bit Group ID
124 127 4 (reserved)
HURD
Starting

Byte

Ending

Byte

Size

in Bytes

Field Description
116 116 1 Fragment number
117 117 1 Fragment size
118 119 2 High 16 bits of 32-bit "Type and Permissions" field
120 121 2 High 16 bits of 32-bit User ID
122 123 2 High 16 bits of 32-bit Group ID
124 127 4 User ID of author (if == 0xFFFFFFFF, the normal User ID will be used)
MASIX
Starting

Byte

Ending

Byte

Size

in Bytes

Field Description
116 116 1 Fragment number
117 117 1 Fragment size
118 127 X (reserved)

Directories

Directories are inodes which contain some number of "entries" as their contents. These entries are nothing more than a name/inode pair. For instance the inode corresponding to the root directory might have an entry with the name of "etc" and an inode value of 50. A directory inode stores these entries in a linked-list fashion in its contents blocks.

The root directory is Inode 2.

The total size of a directory entry may be longer then the length of the name would imply (The name may not span to the end of the record), and records have to be aligned to 4-byte boundaries. Directory entries are also not allowed to span multiple blocks on the file-system, so there may be empty space in-between directory entries. Empty space is however not allowed in-between directory entries, so any possible empty space will be used as part of the preceding record by increasing its record length to include the empty space. Empty space may also be equivalently marked by a separate directory entry with an inode number of zero, indicating that directory entry should be skipped.

Directory Entry

Starting

Byte

Ending

Byte

Size

in Bytes

Field Description
0 3 4 Inode
4 5 2 Total size of this entry (Including all subfields)
6 6 1 Name Length least-significant 8 bits
7 7 1 Type indicator (only if the feature bit for "directory entries have file type byte" is set, else this is the most-significant 8 bits of the Name Length)
8 8+N-1 N Name characters


Directory Entry Type Indicators

Value Type Description
0 Unknown type
1 Regular file
2 Directory
3 Character device
4 Block device
5 FIFO
6 Socket
7 Symbolic link (soft link)

Quick Summaries

How To Read An Inode

  1. Read the Superblock to find the size of each block, the number of blocks per group, number Inodes per group, and the starting block of the first group (Block Group Descriptor Table).
  2. Determine which block group the inode belongs to.
  3. Read the Block Group Descriptor corresponding to the Block Group which contains the inode to be looked up.
  4. From the Block Group Descriptor, extract the location of the block group's inode table.
  5. Determine the index of the inode in the inode table.
  6. Index the inode table (taking into account non-standard inode size).

Directory entry information and file contents are located within the data blocks that the Inode points to.

How To Read the Root Directory

The root directory's inode is defined to always be 2. Read/parse the contents of inode 2.

See Also

External Links

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