FreeBSD manual
download PDF document: tunefs.8.pdf
TUNEFS(8) FreeBSD System Manager's Manual TUNEFS(8)
NAME
tunefs - tune up an existing UFS file system
SYNOPSIS
tunefs [-A] [-a enable | disable] [-e maxbpg] [-f avgfilesize]
[-j enable | disable] [-J enable | disable]
[-k held-for-metadata-blocks] [-L volname] [-l enable | disable]
[-m minfree] [-N enable | disable] [-n enable | disable]
[-o space | time] [-p] [-s avgfpdir] [-S size]
[-t enable | disable] special | filesystem
DESCRIPTION
The tunefs utility is designed to change the dynamic parameters of a UFS
file system which affect the layout policies. The tunefs utility cannot
be run on an active file system. To change an active file system, it
must be downgraded to read-only or unmounted.
The parameters which are to be changed are indicated by the flags given
below:
-A The file system has several backups of the super-block.
Specifying this option will cause all backups to be modified as
well as the primary super-block. This is potentially dangerous -
use with caution.
-a enable | disable
Turn on/off the administrative POSIX.1e ACL enable flag.
-e maxbpg
Indicate the maximum number of blocks any single file can
allocate out of a cylinder group before it is forced to begin
allocating blocks from another cylinder group. Typically this
value is set to about one quarter of the total blocks in a
cylinder group. The intent is to prevent any single file from
using up all the blocks in a single cylinder group, thus
degrading access times for all files subsequently allocated in
that cylinder group. The effect of this limit is to cause big
files to do long seeks more frequently than if they were allowed
to allocate all the blocks in a cylinder group before seeking
elsewhere. For file systems with exclusively large files, this
parameter should be set higher.
-f avgfilesize
Specify the expected average file size.
-j enable | disable
Turn on/off soft updates journaling.
Enabling journaling reduces the time spent by fsck_ffs(8)
cleaning up a filesystem after a crash to a few seconds from
minutes to hours. Without journaling, the time to recover after
a crash is a function of the number of files in the filesystem
and the size of the filesystem. With journaling, the time to
recover after a crash is a function of the amount of activity in
the filesystem in the minute before the crash. Journaled
recovery time is usually only a few seconds and never exceeds a
minute.
fix issues known to the journal. Specifically if a media error
occurs, the journal will not know about it and hence will not fix
it. Thus when using journaling, it is still necessary to run a
full fsck every few months or after a filesystem panic to check
for and fix any errors brought on by media failure. A full fsck
can be done by running a background fsck on a live filesystem or
by running with the -f flag on an unmounted filesystem. When
running fsck_ffs(8) in background on a live filesystem the
filesystem performance will be about half of normal during the
time that the background fsck_ffs(8) is running. Running a full
fsck on a UFS filesystem is the equivalent of running a scrub on
a ZFS filesystem.
-J enable | disable
Turn on/off gjournal flag.
-k held-for-metadata-blocks
Set the amount of space to be held for metadata blocks. When
set, the file system preference routines will try to save the
specified amount of space immediately following the inode blocks
in each cylinder group for use by metadata blocks. Clustering
the metadata blocks speeds up random file access and decreases
the running time of fsck(8). While this option can be set at any
time, it is most effective if set before any data is loaded into
the file system. By default newfs(8) sets it to half of the
space reserved to minfree.
-L volname
Add/modify an optional file system volume label. Legal
characters are alphanumerics, dashes, and underscores.
-l enable | disable
Turn on/off MAC multilabel flag.
-m minfree
Specify the percentage of space held back from normal users; the
minimum free space threshold. The default value used is 8%.
Note that lowering the threshold can adversely affect
performance:
o Settings of 5% and less force space optimization to always be
used which will greatly increase the overhead for file
writes.
o The file system's ability to avoid fragmentation will be
reduced when the total free space, including the reserve,
drops below 15%. As free space approaches zero, throughput
can degrade by up to a factor of three over the performance
obtained at a 10% threshold.
If the value is raised above the current usage level, users will
be unable to allocate files until enough files have been deleted
to get under the higher threshold.
-N enable | disable
Turn on/off the administrative NFSv4 ACL enable flag.
-n enable | disable
Turn on/off soft updates.
the file system.
-p Show a summary of what the current tunable settings are on the
selected file system. More detailed information can be obtained
from the dumpfs(8) utility.
-s avgfpdir
Specify the expected number of files per directory.
-S size
Specify the softdep journal size in bytes. The minimum is 4M.
-t enable | disable
Turn on/off the TRIM enable flag. If enabled, and if the
underlying device supports the BIO_DELETE command, the file
system will send a delete request to the underlying device for
each freed block. The trim enable flag is typically set when the
underlying device uses flash-memory as the device can use the
delete command to pre-zero or at least avoid copying blocks that
have been deleted.
Note that this does not trim blocks that are already free. See
the fsck_ffs(8) -E flag.
At least one of these flags is required.
FILES
/etc/fstab read this to determine the device file for a specified mount
point.
SEE ALSO
fs(5), dumpfs(8), gjournal(8), growfs(8), newfs(8)
M. McKusick, W. Joy, S. Leffler, and R. Fabry, "A Fast File System for
UNIX", ACM Transactions on Computer Systems 2, 3, pp 181-197, August
1984, (reprinted in the BSD System Manager's Manual, SMM:5).
HISTORY
The tunefs utility appeared in 4.2BSD.
BUGS
This utility does not work on active file systems. To change the root
file system, the system must be rebooted after the file system is tuned.
You can tune a file system, but you cannot tune a fish.
FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p11 August 16, 2022 FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p11