FSArchiver not supporting EXT4 partition?

Question

Hi i have just recently been getting errors on my systems using fsarchiver. 
It claims the filesystem is not supported
[======DISK======] [=============NAME==============] [====SIZE====] [MAJ] [MIN]
[sda ] [SAMSUNG HD204UI ] [ 1.82 TB] [ 8] [ 0]
[sdb ] [ELSKY MSATA 16GB ] [ 14.91 GB] [ 8] [ 16]
[=====DEVICE=====] [==FILESYS==] [======LABEL======] [====SIZE====] [MAJ] [MIN]
[sda1 ] [LVM2_member] [<unknown> ] [ 1.82 TB] [ 8] [ 1]
[sdb1 ] [ext4 ] [OS ] [ 14.91 GB] [ 8] [ 17]
[dm-0 ] [ext4 ] [hd1 ] [ 1.82 TB] [254] [ 0]
fsarchiver savefs -v -A -j2 -o -z6 ~/backup.fsa /dev/sdb1
Im trying to backup /dev/sdb1 and it shows this error
oper_save.c#947,filesystem_mount_partition(): filesystem of partition [/dev/sdb1] is not supported by fsarchiver
I am running arch linux, all up to date and have recently updated to systemd and grub2.  Kernel is 3.5.6-1.
I have some other machines with slightly older kernels and on the on initv system and seems to work fine
Is anyone else having these issues?
I would appreciate any insight into a solution.  Thankyou
Last edited by craigdabbs (2012-10-15 10:11:02)

Answer 1

I've been doing a little bit of digging. I'm a bit rusty on the skills, but here's what I've discovered so far...
This is where it's crapping out: oper_save.c#947
res=generic_get_mntinfo(devinfo->devpath, &readwrite, curmntdir, sizeof(curmntdir), optbuf, sizeof(optbuf), fsbuf, sizeof(fsbuf));
if (res==0) // partition is already mounted
devinfo->mountedbyfsa=false;
//snprintf(partmnt, PATH_MAX, "%s", curmntdir); // return the mount point to main savefs function
msgprintf(MSG_DEBUG1, "generic_get_mntinfo(%s): mnt=[%s], opt=[%s], fs=[%s], rw=[%d]\n", devinfo->devpath, curmntdir, optbuf, fsbuf, readwrite);
if (readwrite==1 && g_options.allowsaverw==0)
errprintf("partition [%s] is mounted read/write. please mount it read-only \n"
"and then try again. you can do \"mount -o remount,ro %s\". you can \n"
"also run fsarchiver with option '-A' if you know what you are doing.\n",
devinfo->devpath, devinfo->devpath);
return -1;
if (generic_get_fstype(fsbuf, &devinfo->fstype)!=0)
if (strcmp(fsbuf, "fuseblk")==0)
errprintf("partition [%s] is using a fuse based filesystem (probably ntfs-3g). Unmount it and try again\n", devinfo->devpath);
else
errprintf("filesystem of partition [%s] is not supported by fsarchiver: filesystem=[%s]\n", devinfo->devpath, fsbuf);
return -1;
Specifically:  if (generic_get_fstype(fsbuf, &devinfo->fstype)!=0).
The called function doesn't find a match for the filesystem name.
Here's the code of that function from filesys.c:
// return the index of a filesystem in the filesystem table
58 int generic_get_fstype(char *fsname, int *fstype)
59 {
60 int i;
61
62 for (i=0; filesys[i].name; i++)
63 {
64 if (strcmp(filesys[i].name, fsname)==0)
65 { *fstype=i;
66 return 0;
67 }
68 }
69 *fstype=-1;
70 return -1;
So I guess the filesystem is either being reported incorrectly or in a format that fsarchiver can't make sense of? Something to do with the way the filesystem is mounted when using systemd versus the way fsarchiver looks for the mounted devices.
filesys.c's generic_get_mntinfo
int generic_get_mntinfo(char *devname, int *readwrite, char *mntbuf, int maxmntbuf, char *optbuf, int maxoptbuf, char *fsbuf, int maxfsbuf)
char col_fs[FSA_MAX_FSNAMELEN];
int devisroot=false;
struct stat64 devstat;
struct stat64 rootstat;
char delims[]=" \t\n";
struct utsname suname;
char col_dev[128];
char col_mnt[128];
char col_opt[128];
char line[1024];
char temp[2048];
char *saveptr;
char *result;
int res;
FILE *f;
int i;
// init
res=uname(&suname);
*readwrite=-1; // unknown
memset(mntbuf, 0, sizeof(mntbuf));
memset(optbuf, 0, sizeof(optbuf));
// 1. workaround for systems not having the "/dev/root" node entry.
// There are systems showing "/dev/root" in "/proc/mounts" instead
// of the actual root partition such as "/dev/sda1".
// The consequence is that fsarchiver won't be able to realize
// that the device it is archiving (such as "/dev/sda1") is the
// same as "/dev/root" and that it is actually mounted. This
// function would then say that the "/dev/sda1" device is not mounted
// and fsarchiver would try to mount it and mount() fails with EBUSY
if (stat64(devname, &devstat)==0 && stat64("/", &rootstat)==0 && (devstat.st_rdev==rootstat.st_dev))
devisroot=true;
msgprintf(MSG_VERB1, "device [%s] is the root device\n", devname);
// 2. check device in "/proc/mounts" (typical case)
if ((f=fopen("/proc/mounts","rb"))==NULL)
{ sysprintf("Cannot open /proc/mounts\n");
return 1;
while(!feof(f))
if (stream_readline(f, line, 1024)>1)
result=strtok_r(line, delims, &saveptr);
col_dev[0]=col_mnt[0]=col_fs[0]=col_opt[0]=0;
for(i=0; result != NULL && i<=3; i++)
switch (i) // only the second word is a mount-point
case 0:
snprintf(col_dev, sizeof(col_dev), "%s", result);
break;
case 1:
snprintf(col_mnt, sizeof(col_mnt), "%s", result);
break;
case 2:
snprintf(col_fs, sizeof(col_fs), "%s", result);
break;
case 3:
snprintf(col_opt, sizeof(col_opt), "%s", result);
break;
result = strtok_r(NULL, delims, &saveptr);
if ((devisroot==true) && (strcmp(col_mnt, "/")==0) && (strcmp(col_fs, "rootfs")!=0))
snprintf(col_dev, sizeof(col_dev), "%s", devname);
msgprintf(MSG_DEBUG1, "mount entry: col_dev=[%s] col_mnt=[%s] col_fs=[%s] col_opt=[%s]\n", col_dev, col_mnt, col_fs, col_opt);
if (devcmp(col_dev, devname)==0)
if (generic_get_spacestats(col_dev, col_mnt, temp, sizeof(temp))==0)
msgprintf(MSG_DEBUG1, "found mount entry for device=[%s]: mnt=[%s] fs=[%s] opt=[%s]\n", devname, col_mnt, col_fs, col_opt);
*readwrite=generic_get_fsrwstatus(col_opt);
snprintf(mntbuf, maxmntbuf, "%s", col_mnt);
snprintf(optbuf, maxoptbuf, "%s", col_opt);
snprintf(fsbuf, maxfsbuf, "%s", col_fs);
fclose(f);
return 0;
fclose(f);
return -1;
Last edited by slickvguy (2012-10-30 05:54:56)