Filesystems

Alpine Linux supports a number of filesystems.

Filesystem Tools

Alpine has multiple storage media formatting packages available. Different packages/programs are used to format different types of filesystems.

Tool	Filesystem	Brief Notes
btrfs-progs	Btrfs
dosfstools	FAT12/FAT16/FAT32
e2fsprogs	ext2/ext3/ext4	ext4 is current default
f2fs-tools	F2FS
hfsprogs	XFS HFS/HFS+	Apple/Mac products
jfsutils	JFS
ntfs-3g	NTFS	Microsoft/Windows FUSE driver
xfsprogs	XFS

Formatting Partitions

Whenever a partition is created, the partition must be formatted first before using it. Depending on the filesystem to be used, the necessary formatting tool for the filesystem must be installed first. The various formatting tools like mkfs.ext4, mkfs.vfat, mkfs.btrfs are part of file system tools dosfstools, e2fsprogs, btrfs-progs. Install the filesystem tools first, if not done already.

The following examples show how to use the formatting tools for different filesystems:

Warning: The /dev/sdXY is only an example. Make sure you choose the right partition to format! If you choose the wrong partition, your will lose your data. Make a backup first and do not proceed, if you are unsure.

e2fsprogs

ext4 is the default filesystem in Alpine Linux.

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdaXY

btrfs-progs

# mkfs.btrfs /dev/sdaXY

dosfstools

# mkfs.vfat /dev/sdaXY

f2fs-tools

# mkfs.f2fs /dev/sdaXY

swap Partition

Instead of using a seperate partition for swap, zram can be used as swap.

1. mkswap /dev/sda2
2. echo -e "/dev/sda2 none swap sw 0 0" >> /mnt/etc/fstab
3. swapon /dev/sda2 (or rc-service swap start)

free -m

will show how much swap space is available (in MB).

If you prefer maximum speed, you don't need configure any raid devices for swap. Just add 2 swap partitions on different disks and linux will stripe them automatically. The downside is that the moment one disk fails, the system will go down. For better reliability, put swap on RAID1.

Tip: Instead of using a separate partition for swap, zram based swap file can be used.

Todo: Instructions for cryptswap?