REISERFSTUNE(8)

💖 REISERFSTUNE — the tunning tool for ReiserFS 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because this is reiserfstune from section 8 of the System Manager's Manual, and she is that girl. Tuning tool energy. Let's get into it ✨

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

reiserfstune [ -f ] [ -h | --help ] [ -j | --journal-device FILE ] [
--no-journal-available ] [ --journal-new-device FILE ] [ --make-journal-
standard ] [ -s | --journal-new-size N ] [ -o | --journal-new-offset N ]
[ -t | --max-transaction-size N ] [ -b | --add-badblocks file ] [ -B |
--badblocks file ] [ -u | --uuid UUID ] [ -l | --label LABEL ] [ -c |
--check-interval interval-in-days ] [ -C | --time-last-checked timestamp
] [ -m | --max-mnt-count count ] [ -M | --mnt-count count ] device

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

reiserfstune is literally the glow-up tool for ReiserFS. Here's the tea on what she can do 👇

• change two journal parameters — the journal size and the maximum transaction size
• move the journal's location to a new specified block device (the old ReiserFS journal may be kept unused, or discarded — user's choice, your call bestie 🫶)
• store the bad block list to the ReiserFS
• set the UUID and the LABEL

⚠️ important lore alert: at the time of writing, the relocated journal was implemented for a special release of ReiserFS, and was not expected to be put into the mainstream kernel until approximately Linux 2.5. So if you have the stock kernel you must apply a special patch. Without this patch the kernel will refuse to mount the newly modified file system. And, and, and — "We will charge $25 to explain this to you if you ask us why it doesn't work." 💀 iconic honestly.

Perhaps the most interesting application of this code is to put the journal on a solid state disk. yes queen, SSD journal, main character energy fr fr 🔥

device — the special file corresponding to the newly specified block device (e.g /dev/hdXX for IDE disk partition or /dev/sdXX for the SCSI disk partition).

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -h, --help — Print usage information and exit. short and sweet, she's done ✨
• -j, --journal-device FILE — FILE is the file name of the block device the file system has the current journal (the one prior to running reiserfstune) on. This option is required when the journal is already on a separate device from the main data device (although it can be avoided with --no-journal-available). If you don't specify journal device by this option, reiserfstune supposes that journal is on main device.
• --no-journal-available — lets reiserfstune keep going when the current journal's block device is no longer available. This might happen if a disk goes bad and you remove it (and run fsck). we love a resilient queen 😭
• --journal-new-device FILE — FILE is the file name of the block device which will contain the new journal for the file system. If you don't specify this, reiserfstune supposes that journal device remains the same.
• -s, --journal-new-size N — N is the size parameter for the new journal. When the journal is to be on a separate device, its size defaults to the number of blocks that device has. When the journal is to be on the same device as the filesystem, its size defaults to the amount of blocks allocated for the journal by mkreiserfs when it created the filesystem. Minimum is 513 for both cases.
• -o, --journal-new-offset N — N is an offset in blocks where the journal will start from when the journal is to be on a separate device. Default is 0. Has no effect when the journal is to be on the same device as the filesystem. Most users have no need to use this feature. It can be used when you want the journals from multiple filesystems to reside on the same device, and you don't want to or cannot partition that device. multi-journal on one device? lowkey genius 🧚
• -t, --maximal-transaction-size N — N is the maximum transaction size parameter for the new journal. The default, and max possible, value is 1024 blocks. It should be less than half the size of the journal. If specified incorrectly, it will be adjusted. (she'll fix your mess, don't worry 🫶)
• -b, --add-badblocks file — File is the file name of the file that contains the list of blocks to be marked as bad on the fs. The list is added to the fs list of bad blocks.
• -B, --badblocks file — File is the file name of the file that contains the list of blocks to be marked as bad on the fs. The bad block list on the fs is cleared before the list specified in the File is added to the fs. (yes she wipes it first, no survivors 🩹)
• -f, --force — Normally reiserfstune will refuse to change a journal of a file system that was created before this journal relocation code. This is because if you change the journal, you cannot go back (without special option --make-journal-standard) to an old kernel that lacks this feature and be able to use your filesystem. This option forces it to do that. Specified more than once it allows you to avoid asking for confirmation.
• --make-journal-standard — As it was mentioned above, if your file system has a non-standard journal, it can not be mounted on the kernel without journal relocation code. The thing can be changed! The only condition is that there is a reserved area on the main device of the standard journal size 8193 blocks (it will be so for instance if you convert standard journal to non-standard). Just specify this option when you relocate the journal back, or without relocation if you already have it on main device.
• -u, --uuid UUID — Set the universally unique identifier (UUID) of the filesystem to UUID (see also uuidgen(8)). The format of the UUID is a series of hex digits separated by hypthens, like this: "c1b9d5a2-f162-11cf-9ece-0020afc76f16".
• -l, --label LABEL — Set the volume label of the filesystem. LABEL can be at most 16 characters long; if it is longer than 16 characters, reiserfstune will truncate it.
• -c, --check-interval interval-in-days — Adjust the maximal time between two filesystem checks. A value of "disable" will disable the time-dependent checking. A value of "default" will restore the compile-time default.

🚨 It is strongly recommended that either -m (mount-count dependent) or -c (time-dependent) checking be enabled to force periodic full fsck.reiserfs(8) checking of the filesystem. Failure to do so may lead to filesystem corruption (due to bad disks, cables, memory, or kernel bugs) going unnoticed, ultimately resulting in data loss or corruption. no cap, pls enable it bestie 😭

• -C, --time-last-checked timestamp — Set the time the filesystem was last checked using fsck.reiserfs. This can be useful in scripts which use a Logical Volume Manager to make a consistent snapshot of a filesystem, and then check the filesystem during off hours to make sure it hasn't been corrupted due to hardware problems, etc. If the filesystem was clean, then this option can be used to set the last checked time on the original filesystem. The format of time-last-checked is the international date format, with an optional time specifier, i.e. YYYYMMDD[HH[MM[SS]]]. The keyword now is also accepted, in which case the last checked time will be set to the current time.
• -m, --max-mnt-count max-mount-count — Adjust the number of mounts after which the filesystem will be checked by fsck.reiserfs(8). If max-mount-count is "disable", the number of times the filesystem is mounted will be disregarded by fsck.reiserfs(8) and the kernel. A value of "default" will restore the compile-time default.

Staggering the mount-counts at which filesystems are forcibly checked will avoid all filesystems being checked at one time when using journaled filesystems.

You should strongly consider the consequences of disabling mount-count-dependent checking entirely. Bad disk drives, cables, memory, and kernel bugs could all corrupt a filesystem without marking the filesystem dirty or in error. If you are using journaling on your filesystem, your filesystem will never be marked dirty, so it will not normally be checked. A filesystem error detected by the kernel will still force an fsck on the next reboot, but it may already be too late to prevent data loss at that point. 💀

This option requires a kernel which supports incrementing the count on each mount. This feature has not been incorporated into kernel versions older than 2.6.25.

See also the -c option for time-dependent checking.

• -M, --mnt-count count — Set the number of times the filesystem has been mounted. If set to a greater value than the max-mount-counts parameter set by the -m option, fsck.reiserfs(8) will check the filesystem at the next reboot.

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🦋 POSSIBLE SCENARIOS OF USING REISERFSTUNE 🦋

okay these are the actual real-life plotlines, follow along 💖

1. You have ReiserFS on /dev/hda1, and you wish to have it working with its journal on the device /dev/journal

boot kernel patched with special "relocatable journal support" patch
reiserfstune /dev/hda1 --journal-new-device /dev/journal -f
mount /dev/hda1 and use.
You would like to change max transaction size to 512 blocks
reiserfstune -t 512 /dev/hda1
You would like to use your file system on another kernel that doesn't
contain relocatable journal support.
umount /dev/hda1
reiserfstune /dev/hda1 -j /dev/journal --journal-new-device /dev/hda1 --make-journal-standard
mount /dev/hda1 and use.

2. You would like to have ReiserFS on /dev/hda1 and to be able to switch between different journals including journal located on the device containing the filesystem.

boot kernel patched with special "relocatable journal support" patch
mkreiserfs /dev/hda1
you got solid state disk (perhaps /dev/sda, they typically look like scsi disks)
reiserfstune --journal-new-device /dev/sda1 -f /dev/hda1
Your scsi device dies, it is three in the morning, you have an extra IDE device
lying around
reiserfsck --no-journal-available /dev/hda1
or
reiserfsck --rebuild-tree --no-journal-available /dev/hda1
reiserfstune --no-journal-available --journal-new-device /dev/hda1 /dev/hda1
using /dev/hda1 under patched kernel

(it is three in the morning. the scsi device has passed away. you have an extra IDE device lying around. this is the scenario and honestly it's giving survival horror 🔥)

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

This version of reiserfstune has been written by Vladimir Demidov <vova@namesys.com> and Edward Shishkin <edward@namesys.com>. kings, honestly 🫶

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🐛 BUGS 🐛

Please report bugs to the ReiserFS developers <reiserfs-devel@vger.kerne.org>, providing as much information as possible — your hardware, kernel, patches, settings, all printed messages; check the syslog file for any related information. the more tea you spill the better bestie 💅

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

okay bestie, if you're still thirsty for more reiserfs lore (and honestly, same 💅), go read these next:

• reiserfsck(8) — the filesystem checker, aka the one who does the actual fixing when you've been messy 🩹
• debugreiserfs(8) — for when you wanna snoop on the internals, no cap 🔍
• mkreiserfs(8) — the one that makes the filesystem in the first place, the origin story fr fr 🌱

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and that's the whole page, babes 🎀 you made it to the end, which is giving main character energy honestly 😭💖 go forth and tune responsibly 🦋

this was from Reiserfsprogs-3.6.27, dated January 2009 — yes she's a lil vintage, and yes she still ate 💅✨ REISERFSTUNE(8), periodt. 🫶🌸