e2fsprogs (sometimes called the e2fs programs) is a set of utilities for maintaining the ext2, ext3 and ext4 file systems. Since those file systems are often the default for Linux distributions, it is commonly considered to be essential software.

List of utilities

Included with e2fsprogs, ordered by ASCIIbetical order, are: Many of these utilities are based on the library.

Usage

Despite what its name might suggest, e2fsprogs works not only with ext2, but also with ext3 and ext4. Although ext3's journaling capability can reduce the need to use, it is sometimes still necessary to help protect against kernel bugs or bad hardware. With ext4 the e2fsck runtime should come down considerably, as can be seen from the graph. As the userspace companion for the ext2, ext3, and ext4 drivers in the Linux kernel, the e2fsprogs are most commonly used with Linux. However, they have been ported to other systems, such as FreeBSD and Darwin.