SUMMARY Simple method to convert EXT4 to XFS without data restore
Hello esteemed forum members.
For a specific project, I was asked to test if conversion of EXT4 to XFS could work without data restores on RHEL 7.9.
I did it by using EPEL tool fstransform (available in RHEL repositories).
Maybe this information helps someone else in the future.
Step 1 Install tool from EPEL repository: $ sudo yum -y install fstransform Step 2 Check current setup for file system /myfs: $ uname -a && sudo lsblk -f | awk '$NF=="/myfs" {print $NF,"is file system type",$2}' Linux myhost.domain.dom 3.10.0-1160.25.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Apr 13 18:55:45 EDT 2021 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux /myfs is file system type ext4 $ sudo mount | grep myfs /dev/mapper/myvg-mylv on /myfs type ext4 (rw,noatime,data=ordered) Step 3 Unmount file system /myfs and run the conversion: $ sudo umount /myfs $ sudo fstransform /dev/mapper/myvg-mylv xfs Step 4 Change file system type in /etc/fstab and remount /myfs: $ sudo sed -i -e "s#/myfs.*ext4#/myfs xfs#" /etc/fstab $ sudo mount /myfs $ uname -a && sudo lsblk -f | awk '$NF=="/myfs" {print $NF,"is file system type",$2}' Linux myhost.domain.dom 3.10.0-1160.25.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Apr 13 18:55:45 EDT 2021 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux /myfs is file system type xfs
Yes, certainly there are some caveats and backups are important in case something goes wrong.
Regards,
Dusan Baljevic (amateur radio VK2COT)
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