Solved Problem mounting ext4 on FreeBSD 9.0

Hello everybody.

I need some help to create (if it's possible) an EXT4/EXT3 partition under Linux to be mounted in my Freebsd FreeBSD 9 amd64 box.

The situation is:
I've got an Arch Linux amd64 box with two disks, one of them is my backup disk formatted in EXT4 with gparted. When I try to mount it in Freebsd FreeBSD to restore my data, it says:

Code:
mount: /dev/xxxx : Invalid argument

and dmesg says:

Code:
WARNING: mount of xxxx denied due to unsupported optional features

I'm reading any kind of websites or forums, and all information is old or not working for me. Freebsd FreeBSD supports ext4 and inode size of 256 bytes actually?

My best regards to all, and thanks for any help.
 
FreeBSD doesn't really support ext3/ext4 partitions. It used to support ext2, but Linux has moved to a slightly different format (I think a larger inode size) and it's not supported by FreeBSD yet. At least I haven't been able to get FreeBSD to mount any ext2/3/4 file systems.
 
Since, iirc, 8.2 FreeBSD supports ext2 and ext3 with the 256 byte inode size. Prior to that, it only supported the 128 byte inode size. FreeBSD (any version, as far as I know) does not support ext4, with any inode size.
 
Can't you mount an ext4 as ext3? Granted, you'll lose the journal capability but it might be enough to read.
 
Well, I tried to mount the EXT3 filesystem with a FreeBSD 9.0 amd64 Live CD and it works perfectly, so I guess it should work when installing the system.

Thanks everyone!
 
Thanks for this. Just some more tips for people running across this thread, in search of info on mounting ext4 Linux filesystems in FreeBSD:

gpart list can be useful for figuring out which device to reference—e.g., on my BeagleBone Black (booted from a micro SD card), the command shows a provider named mmcsd1s2 with type linux-data. That's the Debian partition on the eMMC drive. file -s /dev/mmcsd1s2 verifies that it is an ext4 filesystem.

In FreeBSD 10 & up, there's no service to start. Just install sysutils/fusefs-ext4fuse and load the fuse kernel module, and then ext4fuse should work (maybe after a rehash in tcsh):

Code:
# rehash
# mkdir /foo
# kldload fuse
# ext4fuse /dev/mmcsd1s2 /foo
# ls /foo

Update: The ext4fuse driver seems to get confused sometimes. If you do a du -sh /foo you may get a lot of "no such file or directory" messages for directories that do exist, and subsequent navigation to them may just loop over the root directory at first.
 
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That's what it took for me on FreeBSD 11. Nothing else would work, but this exact incantation. Thanks. I'd never used ``rehash`` before.
Please be aware that you're responding to a thread which is over 2 years old. There really was no need for this post..

(edit)

Oh well, a 'thank you' is always appreciated but yah, thing is I sincerely doubt they'll notice it. Even so: good to see it solved your problems.
 
Very easy, sample..
Code:
# cd /usr/ports/sysutils/fusefs-ext4fuse
# make install clean
# service fusefs start
# ext4fuse /dev/ad0s3 /mnt
# ls /mnt
# cp -vRf /mnt/home/ /home/linux
>;D

I wasn't aware of ext4fuse before I read this post.
 
It only goes to prove that all previous threads should kind of remain open, to live forever other then in google cache. You never know what tomorrows upgrade will bring.

For example: I don’t have any fuses compiled in my kernel except NTFS. For all other, I make raw calls. It just so happen for the past month I been trying to save my most respected /usr/local old-mate-desktop so that I never lose it to upgrades like I done with FreeBSD Gnome-8.2 through 10.0 (it was the best to date). I have no time to monk with GNOME3 or MATE-3 environments until comoputers can take orders by thought or eye contact.

Anyway, when I use my dos, ext-2 or even ufs formatted flash-drives, things goes well until I try to copy them to a Fresh FreeBSD install, then FreeBSD goes nuts and destroy the da0-da0s1 format each and every freaking time. Only DOS will NEVER fail because it don’t allow FreeBSD or any other OS to blow it sockets because it don’t have nothing to blow. I tried so hard, so smart, so clean, for weeks, but PoW, right in the kisser each and every time… data GONE! I dare one to try it. Now I know why most threads here argue that you best to format your flash-drive in dos, but never tell you why. I kind of beg for that. Why .. why .. why?

So, you guest it, you can bet all your systems that this thread is my solution.. just waiting to happen. All I got to do is put it in the KERNEL and it will never fail again. I think even ShelLuser agree, and you know he is old-school hard core. Not all UNIX experts has a heart. They did all of the brain work. Anyway for the record, if it still don’t work I’ll let you know.
 
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