Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2012 15:46 Post subject: Linksys WRT 160nl has no ext3 file system support ?
Hi guys,
I have update my Linksys WRT 160nl to use DD-WRT,
DD-WRT v24-sp2 (04/13/11) std
(SVN revision 16785)
Every thing works perfect except that, it seems DD-WRT does not support ext3 file system ?
I have a 500GB disk attach to this router which i use it as a NAS (with Samba installed)
Disk was formated as EXT3 partition, but DD-WRT only has ext2 file system, and what is worse, if i upload a file more than 2G by using ftp , it would disappear and i can not find it,
seems ext2 file system does not support large file which is larger than 2G ?
I also use this disk to do rsync backup for my website archives (www.bangzhufu.com), and since the archives file is larger than 2G, rsync always successful, but the archive file would disappear immediately . The Ext 2 file system in DD-WRT is really really useless for large disk.
I have googled internet and lot of article of dd-wrt is only for BroadCom routers which apparently has ext3 file system module. And all article about Linksys WRT 160 nl has described that you can format your disk as Ext3, and then dd-wrt use it just as Ext 2, which is stupid ...
I have checked /lib/modules/.../fs directory and find only ext2.ko, no ext3.ko exist, so i have no way to insmod ext3.ko to make it work
Does anyone has a solution for supporting ext3 file system in Linksys wrt 160nl ?
Update to some other revision such as the latest r18777 ? Or i can download or install this ext3.ko in some other way ?
Joined: 28 Jan 2012 Posts: 7 Location: Ulm, Germany
Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2012 18:01 Post subject: Re: Linksys WRT 160nl has no ext3 file system support ?
qiangyu wrote:
Disk was formated as EXT3 partition, but DD-WRT only has ext2 file system, and what is worse, if i upload a file more than 2G by using ftp , it would disappear and i can not find it,
seems ext2 file system does not support large file which is larger than 2G ?
No, ext2 does support files at least up to 16 GB in size (depending on the block size).
What do you mean by "disappear"? You can't see it using Samba/FTP? AFAIK, old firmware builds don't have large file support enabled, so any file larger than 2GB isn't "seen". However, if you ssh to the router you will see the file with ls command. But it won't show you its size.
qiangyu wrote:
Does anyone has a solution for supporting ext3 file system in Linksys wrt 160nl ?
Update to some other revision such as the latest r18777 ? Or i can download or install this ext3.ko in some other way
I've also had such problems as you until I upgraded to the latest build. Seems like large file support was enabled at least starting from 2012 year builds.
The main advantage of ext3 over ext2 is journaling. After unclean shutdown you don't need to run file system check as it can try to "recover itself" by replaying the journal. This greatly reduces possibility of file system corruption due to power loss or other unexpected errors.
As ext3 is still not supported even in the latest builds I decided to go with NTFS which has journaling too. It is supported almost out of the box. You have to go to Administration -> Commands and add the following line to Startup:
Code:
insmod fuse.ko
But it also has its downfalls:
First one is that each mounted partition costs ~1.4 Mb of memory.
Second one is that reading uses up to 25%, writing - up to 50% of router CPU. This can cause notable decrease of Internet connection speed while reading and writing, especially if you download torrents or use VPN on your router.
_________________ With best regards,
Oleksii Serdiuk <contacts[at]oleksii.name>
Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2012 20:40 Post subject: Re: Linksys WRT 160nl has no ext3 file system support ?
leppa wrote:
qiangyu wrote:
Disk was formated as EXT3 partition, but DD-WRT only has ext2 file system, and what is worse, if i upload a file more than 2G by using ftp , it would disappear and i can not find it,
seems ext2 file system does not support large file which is larger than 2G ?
No, ext2 does support files at least up to 16 GB in size (depending on the block size).
What do you mean by "disappear"? You can't see it using Samba/FTP? AFAIK, old firmware builds don't have large file support enabled, so any file larger than 2GB isn't "seen". However, if you ssh to the router you will see the file with ls command. But it won't show you its size.
qiangyu wrote:
Does anyone has a solution for supporting ext3 file system in Linksys wrt 160nl ?
Update to some other revision such as the latest r18777 ? Or i can download or install this ext3.ko in some other way
I've also had such problems as you until I upgraded to the latest build. Seems like large file support was enabled at least starting from 2012 year builds.
The main advantage of ext3 over ext2 is journaling. After unclean shutdown you don't need to run file system check as it can try to "recover itself" by replaying the journal. This greatly reduces possibility of file system corruption due to power loss or other unexpected errors.
As ext3 is still not supported even in the latest builds I decided to go with NTFS which has journaling too. It is supported almost out of the box. You have to go to Administration -> Commands and add the following line to Startup:
Code:
insmod fuse.ko
But it also has its downfalls:
First one is that each mounted partition costs ~1.4 Mb of memory.
Second one is that reading uses up to 25%, writing - up to 50% of router CPU. This can cause notable decrease of Internet connection speed while reading and writing, especially if you download torrents or use VPN on your router.
I just plugged and played my USB 80GB HDD NTFS and it works fine
Could you explain what "insmod fuse.ko" does vs not using it please ? _________________ TPLINK TL-WR2543ND (5GHz)
WRT160NL (2.4GHz)
Joined: 28 Jan 2012 Posts: 7 Location: Ulm, Germany
Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2012 23:20 Post subject: Re: Linksys WRT 160nl has no ext3 file system support ?
Detection wrote:
I just plugged and played my USB 80GB HDD NTFS and it works fine
Could you explain what "insmod fuse.ko" does vs not using it please ?
So HDD was mounted and you can access it through Samba/FTP? Can you write to it? If yes, then it seems like now it works out of the box.
"insmod fuse.ko" was needed to load kernel module which NTFS-3G requires to function. NTFS partitions weren't mounted without this. Most probably, it's now loaded automatically. _________________ With best regards,
Oleksii Serdiuk <contacts[at]oleksii.name>
Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 0:51 Post subject: Re: Linksys WRT 160nl has no ext3 file system support ?
leppa wrote:
Detection wrote:
I just plugged and played my USB 80GB HDD NTFS and it works fine
Could you explain what "insmod fuse.ko" does vs not using it please ?
So HDD was mounted and you can access it through Samba/FTP? Can you write to it? If yes, then it seems like now it works out of the box.
"insmod fuse.ko" was needed to load kernel module which NTFS-3G requires to function. NTFS partitions weren't mounted without this. Most probably, it's now loaded automatically.
Yep, for the past 3 FW updates I have been able to just plug in a USB to IDE adapter connected to a laptop 80GB NTFS drive and initially had to access it via IP but since the last update it appears on the network just like any shared drive would
Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 3:46 Post subject: Re: Linksys WRT 160nl has no ext3 file system support ?
leppa wrote:
qiangyu wrote:
Disk was formated as EXT3 partition, but DD-WRT only has ext2 file system, and what is worse, if i upload a file more than 2G by using ftp , it would disappear and i can not find it,
seems ext2 file system does not support large file which is larger than 2G ?
No, ext2 does support files at least up to 16 GB in size (depending on the block size).
What do you mean by "disappear"? You can't see it using Samba/FTP? AFAIK, old firmware builds don't have large file support enabled, so any file larger than 2GB isn't "seen". However, if you ssh to the router you will see the file with ls command. But it won't show you its size.
qiangyu wrote:
Does anyone has a solution for supporting ext3 file system in Linksys wrt 160nl ?
Update to some other revision such as the latest r18777 ? Or i can download or install this ext3.ko in some other way
I've also had such problems as you until I upgraded to the latest build. Seems like large file support was enabled at least starting from 2012 year builds.
The main advantage of ext3 over ext2 is journaling. After unclean shutdown you don't need to run file system check as it can try to "recover itself" by replaying the journal. This greatly reduces possibility of file system corruption due to power loss or other unexpected errors.
As ext3 is still not supported even in the latest builds I decided to go with NTFS which has journaling too. It is supported almost out of the box. You have to go to Administration -> Commands and add the following line to Startup:
Code:
insmod fuse.ko
But it also has its downfalls:
First one is that each mounted partition costs ~1.4 Mb of memory.
Second one is that reading uses up to 25%, writing - up to 50% of router CPU. This can cause notable decrease of Internet connection speed while reading and writing, especially if you download torrents or use VPN on your router.
really thanks to your reply
Actually, i tried to telnet into router, and do ls , even ls -al, any file larger than 2G, just disappear, there is no such file ...
It is just like, after the file has been created, it was deleted by dd-wrt Kernel ? because it does not support any file larger than 2G ?
I formatted my 500GB disk as EXT3, with block size = 2KB
i am trying to find a firware which support ext3, or at least find a ext3.ko which i can do insmod
Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 14:08 Post subject: Re: Linksys WRT 160nl has no ext3 file system support ?
Here is my final conclution in case any one would needs these information in the future ...
(1) Although Ext2 can support large file > 2G, but this is not true in DD-WRT , It seems DD-WRT kernel does not support file > 2G, so you would lost any file which is larger than 2G
Solution to this Problem: update your firmware to r18777 which fix this problem
(2) Although many articles you can google that teach you to format your hard disk as ext3, and DD-WRT would mount it ,
But this is not true for Linksys WRT 160nl ,
DD-WRT for this device does not support ext3 filesystem, so it would use your ext3 driver as just ext2,
The dd-wrt kernel does not support ext3 filesystem, i tried to use OpenWrt ext3.ko as a replacement, but it fail to work
So, Do not waste your time to try to add ext3 support for your huge disk , Unless you have ability to re-build dd-wrt image yourself,
World is tough always , So if you can not change it, then you have to accept it ...
Just forget ext3 until God notice the needs in your pray ...
Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 0:21 Post subject: Re: Linksys WRT 160nl has no ext3 file system support ?
qiangyu wrote:
Here is my final conclution in case any one would needs these information in the future ...
(1) Although Ext2 can support large file > 2G, but this is not true in DD-WRT , It seems DD-WRT kernel does not support file > 2G, so you would lost any file which is larger than 2G
Solution to this Problem: update your firmware to r18777 which fix this problem
(2) Although many articles you can google that teach you to format your hard disk as ext3, and DD-WRT would mount it ,
But this is not true for Linksys WRT 160nl ,
DD-WRT for this device does not support ext3 filesystem, so it would use your ext3 driver as just ext2,
The dd-wrt kernel does not support ext3 filesystem, i tried to use OpenWrt ext3.ko as a replacement, but it fail to work
So, Do not waste your time to try to add ext3 support for your huge disk , Unless you have ability to re-build dd-wrt image yourself,
World is tough always , So if you can not change it, then you have to accept it ...
Just forget ext3 until God notice the needs in your pray ...
EXT3 formatted drives do work with 18777
I only tested this out today and it works 100% and is faster than NTFS
Joined: 28 Jan 2012 Posts: 7 Location: Ulm, Germany
Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 14:50 Post subject: Re: Linksys WRT 160nl has no ext3 file system support ?
Detection wrote:
EXT3 formatted drives do work with 18777
I only tested this out today and it works 100% and is faster than NTFS
Yes, they do. But they're actually mounted as ext2 (read "without journaling"), because there is no ext3 support in the kernel. This is possible because ext3 is, basically, ext2 with some additional features that are getting disabled when you mount it as ext2. _________________ With best regards,
Oleksii Serdiuk <contacts[at]oleksii.name>
