From 886056bd393ed6a7cc81bd752933c91637738da7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Theodore Ts'o Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2013 17:06:38 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] mke2fs: clarify the description of the -I option in the man page Addresses-Debian-Bug: #698076 Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" --- misc/mke2fs.8.in | 24 +++++++++++++++++------- 1 file changed, 17 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-) diff --git a/misc/mke2fs.8.in b/misc/mke2fs.8.in index c1786289..9679780d 100644 --- a/misc/mke2fs.8.in +++ b/misc/mke2fs.8.in @@ -355,20 +355,30 @@ a filesystem changes the numer of inodes to maintain this ratio. .TP .BI \-I " inode-size" Specify the size of each inode in bytes. -.B mke2fs -creates 256-byte inodes by default. In kernels after 2.6.10 and some -earlier vendor kernels it is possible to utilize inodes larger than -128 bytes to store -extended attributes for improved performance. The +The .I inode-size value must be a power of 2 larger or equal to 128. The larger the .I inode-size the more space the inode table will consume, and this reduces the usable space in the filesystem and can also negatively impact performance. +It is not +possible to change this value after the filesystem is created. +.IP +In kernels after 2.6.10 and some +earlier vendor kernels it is possible to utilize inodes larger than +128 bytes to store +extended attributes for improved performance. Extended attributes stored in large inodes are not visible with older kernels, and such -filesystems will not be mountable with 2.4 kernels at all. It is not -possible to change this value after the filesystem is created. +filesystems will not be mountable with 2.4 kernels at all. +.IP +The default inode size is controlled by the +.BR mke2fs.conf (5) +file. In the +.B mke2fs.conf +file shipped with e2fsprogs, the default inode size is 256 bytes for +most file systems, except for small file systems where the inode size +will be 128 bytes. .TP .B \-j Create the filesystem with an ext3 journal. If the -- 2.11.0