"Mindaugas" mind@bi.lt wrote:
I was asked if it is possible to zero unused space in ext3 partition?
I have a couple of patches that add a zerofree mount option to ext2 and ext3 filesystems. The ext2 version is much better tested and more complete: it zeros all file data blocks, directory blocks and extended attributes (though not inode data). The ext3 patch only handles file data, not metadata.
I've been meaning to submit these to LKML, but since you ask let's give them an airing here first.
Since this is being copied to the CentOS mailing list I should point out that I also have versions of the patches that apply cleanly to the RHEL 4 kernel. I don't have them to hand at the moment but if there's any interest I can provide them later.
Some background information and other tools are on my website:
http://intgat.tigress.co.uk/rmy/uml/index.html
Ron