Generate an EXT2 image without being root

I'm not aware of any other method, however you can do this without being
root (man mount, man fstab).  If you apply the following to a loop back
device, you should be able to get mount to mount an ext2 file system as a
mortal user.

see manual pages for ... losetup, fstab, and mount

       (iii) Normally, only the superuser can mount file  systems.   However,
       when  fstab contains the user option on a line, then anybody can mount
       the corresponding system.

CB

But if the file-system needs to contain special files (device nodes, e.g.,
/dev/ttyS0 et all), you'll still need to be root unless I'm missing
something.
Of course, not all EXT2 file systems need nodes owned by someone other
than yourself but if it's a bootable filesystem, I don't think you have
much choice. Root is it.


On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 07:43:29 +0000, Craig Bergren wrote:

Look at the following links:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/e2fsimage/
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/genext2fs

I have not tried these, but appear to be the type of program
with the characteristics you want.

Also, the ext2 utility program debugfs has all
the tools needed to populate a ramdisk,
using the commands mkdir, mknod, and write.
The filesystem needs to have been created
first by using the traditional dd if=null of=filesys count=4k,
and mke2fs filesys method.

John, you're a genius. Those are exactly what I need, thanks.

Cheers to everyone else who replied.



I may take a look at this.