NAME¶
ext3grep - ext3 file recovery tool
SYNOPSIS¶
ext3grep [
OPTIONS]
FILE ...
DESCRIPTION¶
ext3grep is a simple tool intended to aid anyone who accidentally deletes a file
on an ext3 filesystem, only to find that they wanted it shortly thereafter.
OPTIONS¶
- --superblock
- Print contents of superblock in addition to the rest. If no
action is specified then this option is implied.
- --print
- Print contents of block or inode, if any.
- --ls
- Print directories, one line per entry. See the
FILTERS section for details on filtering this output.
- --accept FILE
- Accepts 'file' as a legal filename. Can be used multiple
times. If you change any --accept you must remove BOTH stage*
files!
- --journal
- Prints the contents of the journal.
- --show-path-inodes
- Show the inode of each directory component in paths.
Filters:¶
- --group gid
- Only show/process files owned by process group
gid.
- --directory
- Only show/process process directory inodes.
- --after dtime
- Only show/process entries deleted on or after
dtime.
- --before dtime
- Only show/process entries deleted before dtime.
- --deleted
- Only show/process deleted entries.
- --allocated
- Only show/process allocated inodes/blocks.
- --unallocated
- Only show/process unallocated inodes/blocks.
- --reallocated
- Do not suppress entries with reallocated inodes. Inodes are
considered 'reallocated' if the entry is deleted but the inode is
allocated, but also when the file type in the dir entry and the inode are
different.
- --zeroed-inodes
- Do not suppress entries with zeroed inodes. Linked entries
are always shown, regardless of this option.
- --depth depth
- Process directories recursively up till a depth of
'depth'.
Actions:¶
- --inode-to-block inode_num
- Print the block that contains inode inode_num.
- --inode inode_num
- Show info on inode inode_num. If --ls is used
and the inode is a directory, then the filters apply to the entries of the
directory. If you do not use --ls then --print is
implied.
- --block block_num
- Show info on block block_num. If --ls is used
and the block is the first block of a directory, then the filters apply to
entries of the directory. If you do not use --ls then
--print is implied.
- --histogram=[atime|ctime|mtime|dtime|group]
- Generate a histogram based on the given specs. Using atime,
ctime or mtime will change the meaning of --after and
--before to those times.
- --journal-block block_num
- Show info on journal block block_num.
- --journal-transaction seq
- Show info on transaction with sequence number
seq.
- --dump-names
- Write the paths of files to stdout. This implies
--ls but suppresses its output.
- --search-start str
- Find blocks that start with the fixed string
str.
- --search str
- Find blocks that contain the fixed string str.
- --search-inode block_num
- Find inodes that refer to block block_num.
- --search-zeroed-inodes
- Return allocated inode table entries that are zeroed.
- --inode-dirblock-table dir
- Print a table for directory path dir of directory
block numbers found and the inodes used for each file.
- --show-journal-inodes inode_num
- Show copies of inode inode_num still in the
journal.
- --restore-file path
- Will restore file path. path is relative to
root of the partition and does not start with a '/' (it must be one of the
paths returned by --dump-names). The restored directory, file or
symbolic link is created in the current directory as ./ path.
- --restore-all
- As --restore-file but attempts to restore
everything. The use of --after is highly recommended because the
attempt to restore very old files will only result in them being hard
linked to a more recently deleted file and as such pollute the
output.
- --show-hardlinks
- Show all inodes that are shared by two or more files.
- --version, -[vV]
- Prints the version information and exits.
- --help,
- Prints a help message and exits.
EXAMPLES¶
Restoring all files from the ext3 partition/file /backup/sda1:
ext3grep --restore-all /backup/sda1
Listing the files owned by GID 1000 on /backup/sda1:
ext3grep --ls --group 1000 /backup/sda1
Finding all files containing the string Critical_report in their name on
/backup/sda1:
ext3grep --dump-names /backup/sda1 | grep 'Critical_report'
LIMITATIONS¶
Do not attempt to use ext3grep for recovery from a mounted filesystem. Ever.
No, not even then.
ext3grep sometimes runs out of memory spare on 32-bit architectures and crashes.
It is highly recommended that you run ext3grep in a 64-bit environment when
dealing with large filesystems, though this is seen as a bug.
ext3grep cannot recover files if there are no remnants of them.
Some files that ext3grep recovers may have trailing null bytes - just scrape
them off like the burnt bits on toast.
SEE ALSO¶
debugfs(8)
AUTHOR¶
ext3grep was written by Carlo Wood <
carlo@alinoe.com>.
This manual page was written by Rich Ercolani <
rercola@acm.jhu.edu>, for the Debian project (but may be used by
others). It may be distributed under the same terms as ext3grep, the GNU
General Public License, either version 2 or (at your option) any later
version.