[Bug 656115] Re: cannot resize ext4 once GDT blocks exhausted

[First Last]

can't resize my ext4 root file system and only linux file system (I only
have one linux partition apart from swap partition).  All I wanted was
to go from 3 GB to 4 GB.

Resized the partition with gparted live but now the file system is stuck at 3 GB...
 
Lubuntu 12.04

cpo at tower-Lubuntu:~$ df
Filesystem     1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda6        2884798 2544180    186798  94% /
udev              990736       4    990732   1% /dev
tmpfs             399188     848    398340   1% /run
none                5120       0      5120   0% /run/lock
none              997968     168    997800   1% /run/shm
cpo at tower-Lubuntu:~$ sudo resize2fs /dev/sda6
resize2fs 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
resize2fs: /dev/sda6: The combination of flex_bg and
	!resize_inode features is not supported by resize2fs.

Can anyone help?  The only option I have now is to format partitions and
do a clean install of Lubuntu :(

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/656115

Title:
  cannot resize ext4 once GDT blocks exhausted

Status in “e2fsprogs” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  With an ext4 filesystem, you can shrink and expand a filesystem until
  you run out of GDT blocks.  After that the filesystem cannot be
  resized, neither shrunk nor expanded, even if unmounted.

  Although this issue is most relevant in an LVM environment, here's
  some code to demonstrate the issue using a loopback device.  The code
  needs to be run as root.

  dd if=/dev/zero of=ext4.img bs=1M count=10000
  dev=$(losetup -vf ext4.img| cut -d" " -f4)
  mkfs.ext4 ${dev} 5M
  tune2fs -l ${dev} | grep -i gdt
  resize2fs ${dev} 3G
  tune2fs -l ${dev} | grep -i gdt
  resize2fs ${dev} 2G
  tune2fs -l ${dev} | grep -i gdt
  resize2fs ${dev} 3G
  tune2fs -l ${dev} | grep -i gdt
  resize2fs ${dev} 5G
  tune2fs -l ${dev} | grep -i gdt
  resize2fs ${dev} 3G

  At this point resize2fs returns an error:

  resize2fs: /dev/loop0: The combination of flex_bg and
         !resize_inode features is not supported by resize2fs.

  This means the filesystems is 5GB forever.  It cannot be resized,
  expanded or shrunk.

  In contrast, ext3 does not have this issue.

  mkfs.ext3 ${dev} 5M
  tune2fs -l ${dev} | grep -i gdt
  resize2fs ${dev} 3G
  tune2fs -l ${dev} | grep -i gdt
  resize2fs ${dev} 2G
  tune2fs -l ${dev} | grep -i gdt
  resize2fs ${dev} 3G
  tune2fs -l ${dev} | grep -i gdt
  resize2fs ${dev} 5G
  tune2fs -l ${dev} | grep -i gdt
  resize2fs ${dev} 3G

  Workaround: when creating an ext4 filesystem, use the extended option
  resize=.  For example:

  mkfs.ext4 -E resize=100000000000 ${dev} 5M
  tune2fs -l ${dev} | grep -i gdt
  resize2fs ${dev} 5G
  tune2fs -l ${dev} | grep -i gdt
  resize2fs ${dev} 3G

  This option can be added to /etc/mke2fs.conf.

  This is on Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 with the latest updates.

  # lsb_release -rd
  Description:	Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS
  Release:	10.04

  # dpkg -l | awk '/e2fsprogs/ {print $2, $3}'
  e2fsprogs 1.41.11-1ubuntu2

  # uname -rvmpio
  2.6.32-25-generic #44-Ubuntu SMP Fri Sep 17 20:26:08 UTC 2010 i686 unknown unknown GNU/Linux

  # cat /proc/version_signature
  Ubuntu 2.6.32-25.44-generic 2.6.32.21+drm33.7

  Regards,
  - Robert

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