GROWFS(8) BSD System Manager's Manual GROWFS(8)NAME
growfs -- grow size of an existing ufs file system
SYNOPSIS
growfs [-Ny] [-s size] special
DESCRIPTION
The growfs utility extends the newfs(8) program. Before starting growfs the disk must be labeled to a bigger size using bsdlabel(8). If you
wish to grow a file system beyond the boundary of the slice it resides in, you must re-size the slice using fdisk(8) before running growfs.
If you are using volumes you must enlarge them by using vinum(8). The growfs utility extends the size of the file system on the specified
special file. Currently growfs can only enlarge unmounted file systems. Do not try enlarging a mounted file system, your system may panic
and you will not be able to use the file system any longer. Most of the newfs(8) options cannot be changed by growfs. In fact, you can only
increase the size of the file system. Use tunefs(8) for other changes.
The following options are available:
-N ``Test mode''. Causes the new file system parameters to be printed out without actually enlarging the file system.
-y ``Expert mode''. Usually growfs will ask you if you took a backup of your data before and will do some tests whether special is cur-
rently mounted or whether there are any active snapshots on the file system specified. This will be suppressed. So use this option
with great care!
-s size
Determines the size of the file system after enlarging in sectors. This value defaults to the size of the raw partition specified in
special (in other words, growfs will enlarge the file system to the size of the entire partition).
EXAMPLES
growfs -s 4194304 /dev/vinum/testvol
will enlarge /dev/vinum/testvol up to 2GB if there is enough space in /dev/vinum/testvol.
SEE ALSO bsdlabel(8), dumpfs(8), fdisk(8), ffsinfo(8), fsck(8), newfs(8), tunefs(8), vinum(8)HISTORY
The growfs utility first appeared in FreeBSD 4.4.
AUTHORS
Christoph Herrmann <chm@FreeBSD.org>
Thomas-Henning von Kamptz <tomsoft@FreeBSD.org>
The GROWFS team <growfs@Tomsoft.COM>
BUGS
The growfs utility works starting with FreeBSD 3.x. There may be cases on FreeBSD 3.x only, when growfs does not recognize properly whether
or not the file system is mounted and exits with an error message. Then please use growfs -y if you are sure that the file system is not
mounted. It is also recommended to always use fsck(8) after enlarging (just to be on the safe side).
For enlarging beyond certain limits, it is essential to have some free blocks available in the first cylinder group. If that space is not
available in the first cylinder group, a critical data structure has to be relocated into one of the new available cylinder groups. On
FreeBSD 3.x this will cause problems with fsck(8) afterwards. So fsck(8) needs to be patched if you want to use growfs for FreeBSD 3.x.
This patch is already integrated in FreeBSD starting with FreeBSD 4.4. To avoid an unexpected relocation of that structure it is possible to
use ffsinfo -g 0 -l 4 on the first cylinder group to verify that nbfree in the CYLINDER SUMMARY (internal cs) of the CYLINDER GROUP cgr0 has
enough blocks. As a rule of thumb for default file system parameters one block is needed for every 2 GB of total file system size.
Normally growfs writes this critical structure to disk and reads it again later for doing more updates. This read operation will provide
unexpected data when using -N. Therefore, this part cannot really be simulated and will be skipped in test mode.
BSD September 8, 2000 BSD
Check Out this Related Man Page
growfs(1M) System Administration Commands growfs(1M)NAME
growfs - non-destructively expand a UFS file system
SYNOPSIS
/usr/sbin/growfs [-M mount-point] [newfs-options] [raw-device]
DESCRIPTION
growfs non-destructively expands a mounted or unmounted UNIX file system (UFS) to the size of the file system's slice(s).
Typically, disk space is expanded by first adding a slice to a metadevice, then running the growfs command. When adding space to a mirror,
you expand each submirror before expanding the file system.
growfs will ``write-lock'' (see lockfs(1M)) a mounted file system when expanding. The length of time the file system is write-locked can be
shortened by expanding the file system in stages. For instance, to expand a 1 Gbyte file system to 2 Gbytes, the file system can be grown
in 16 Mbyte stages using the -s option to specify the total size of the new file system at each stage. The argument for -s is the number of
sectors, and must be a multiple of the cylinder size. Note: The file system cannot be grown if a cylinder size of less than 2 is specified.
Refer to the newfs(1M) man page for information on the options available when growing a file system.
growfs displays the same information as mkfs during the expansion of the file system.
If growfs is aborted, recover any lost free space by unmounting the file system and running the fsck command, or run the growfs command
again.
OPTIONS
Root privileges are required for all of the following options.
-M mount-point
The file system to be expanded is mounted on mount-point. File system locking (lockfs) will be used.
newfs-options
The options are documented in the newfs man page.
raw-device
Specifies the name of a raw metadevice or raw special device, residing in /dev/md/rdsk, or /dev/rdsk, respectively, including the disk
slice, where you want the file system to be grown.
EXAMPLES
Example 1: Expanding nonmetadevice slice for /export file system
The following example expands a nonmetadevice slice for the /export file system. In this example, the existing slice, /dev/dsk/c1t0d0s3, is
converted to a metadevice so additional slices can be concatenated.
# metainit -f d8 2 1 c1t0d0s3 1 c2t0d0s3
# umount /export
Example 2: Associate /export with new metadevice
Edit the /etc/vfstab file to change the entry for /export to the newly defined metadevice, d8.
# mount /export
# growfs -M /export /dev/md/rdsk/d8
The first example starts by running the metainit command with the -f option to force the creation of a new concatenated metadevice d8,
which consists of the existing slice /dev/dsk/c1t0d0s3 and a new slice /dev/dsk/c2t0d0s3. Next, the file system on /export must be
unmounted. The /etc/vfstab file is edited to change the entry for /export to the newly defined metadevice name, rather than the slice
name. After the file system is remounted, the growfs command is run to expand the file system. The file system will span the entire metade-
vice when growfs completes. The -M option enables the growfs command to expand a mounted file system. During the expansion, write access
for /export is suspended until growfs unlocks the file system. Read access is not affected, though access times are not kept when the lock
is in effect.
Example 3: Dynamic Expansion of /export file system
The following example picks up from the previous one. Here, the /export file system mounted on metadevice d8 is dynamically expanded.
# metattach d8 c0t1d0s2
# growfs -M /export /dev/md/rdsk/d8
This example begins by using the metattach command to dynamically concatenate a new slice, /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s2, to the end of an existing
metadevice, d8. Next, the growfs command specifies that the mount-point is /export and that it is to be expanded onto the raw metadevice
/dev/md/rdsk/d8. The file system will span the entire metadevice when growfs completes. During the expansion, write access for /export is
suspended until growfs unlocks the file system. Read access is not affected, though access times are not kept when the lock is in effect.
Example 4: Expanding mounted file system to existing mirror
The following example expands a mounted file system /files, to an existing mirror, d80, which contains two submirrors, d9 and d10.
# metattach d9 c0t2d0s5
# metattach d10 c0t3d0s5
# growfs -M /files /dev/md/rdsk/d80
In this example, the metattach command dynamically concatenates the new slices to each submirror. The metattach command must be run for
each submirror. The mirror will automatically grow when the last submirror is dynamically concatenated. The mirror will grow to the size of
the smallest submirror. The growfs command then expands the file system. The growfs command specifies that the mount-point is /files and
that it is to be expanded onto the raw metadevice /dev/md/rdsk/d80. The file system will span the entire mirror when the growfs command
completes. During the expansion, write access for the file system is suspended until growfs unlocks the file system. Read access is not
affected, though access times are not kept when the lock is in effect.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0 Successful completion.
>0 An error occurred.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Availability |SUNWmdu |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
SEE ALSO fsck(1M), lockfs(1M), mkfs(1M), metattach(1M), newfs(1M), attributes(5)
Solaris Volume Manager Administration Guide
LIMITATIONS
Only UFS file systems (either mounted or unmounted) can be expanded using the growfs command. Once a file system is expanded, it cannot be
decreased in size. The following conditions prevent you from expanding file systems: When acct is activated and the accounting file is on
the target device. When C2 security is activated and the logging file is on the target file system. When there is a local swap file in the
target file system. When the file system is root (/), /usr, or swap.
SunOS 5.10 9 Dec 2003 growfs(1M)