# migrate from ubuntu to Freebsd



## Scouba (Jun 14, 2010)

hello
Newly arrived in the freebsd world I come to you to ask for help.
until then I used a Ubuntu 9.10 server "that served as NAS too" and I want to move my machine to FREEBSD for stability reasons and to learn how to use this system.
my concern is:
the architecture of server disk Ubuntu is as follows:
(HDD1 HDD2 250GB + 250GB) are as RAID1 with File System (/ and / Home in ext4 and Swap)
(HDD3 2tO HDD4 2TO) are in RAID1 with LVM on what I have several LV (5 exactly) all formatted in ext4
to migrate my server I unplugged everything keeping only the HDD1 where I put my Freebsd 8.1 which runs perfectly.
I'm looking for a method to retrieve the content HDD3 or HDD4 directly from the Freebsd in order to put my server developed with 4 HDD.

thank's for your help.


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## SirDice (Jun 14, 2010)

AFAIK there's no support for ext4.


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## phoenix (Jun 14, 2010)

Correct.  There's no support for ext3 or ext4 in FreeBSD.  An ext3 filesystem can be mounted as ext2, which is supported.  But there's no way to get data out of an ext4 filesystem.


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## nekoexmachina (Jun 14, 2010)

There was some SoC project to get ext4 support. Also you can just copy your data from ext4 to zfs/ufs from linux.


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## jb_fvwm2 (Jun 14, 2010)

Not a question for the OP but..

The ext4 cannot be copied from ...
(after being attached to a mountpoint
using utilities
from e2fsprogs?  /sysutils/)  ... Recursive cp, rsync,
dump,restore, ??

I'd back up the data first...


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## Scouba (Jun 14, 2010)

I Have juste one server and nothing else.
I just want to know how to handle the hard disk to move from one distribution to another without any delete.


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## phoenix (Jun 14, 2010)

With only one box, using ext4 for data storage ... you can't.  (Well, there's always a way, using virtualisation, but is it really worth the effort ...)

You need to use a filesystem that both Linux and FreeBSD can access:  fat32, ntfs, ext2, ufs.

Anything else, and you're SoL.


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## roddierod (Jun 15, 2010)

Scouba said:
			
		

> I Have juste one server and nothing else.
> I just want to know how to handle the hard disk to move from one distribution to another without any delete.



Since no one directly pointed it out and this statement leads me to believe you think FreeBSD is a Linux distribution it should be stated, FreeBSD is not a Linux distribution hence the the file support issues.


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## kdemidofff (Jun 15, 2010)

Can u use some linux LiveCD to mount ext4 and ufs and transfer files? Also u can run FreeBSD as virtual machine and transfer from host to guest
which i guess more reliable than mount ufs with linux. U can try to downgrade file system by breaking RAID1 and use new supported fs on on of disks. However backup all critical data first. After just copy and verify. Then remove ext4 and extend raid to it.

I guess ext5 would be file system that will store only open source format files and refuse to save an .xls  or freely putting it on some free space on /dev/gpl/random and after u try retrieve it it will give you standard disclaimer about good open source


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## tnibbe (Jul 7, 2010)

You could create an ntfs partition for your data so that both freebsd and linux will be able to read from it and write to it.  You will have to use linux to copy your data from the ext4 partition to the ntfs partition.  You could use a live linux disk to resize your partitions, create the ntfs partition, and copy your files.

This filesystem incompatibility is what is keeping me from dual booting linux and freebsd.  At one time I used only freebsd, but when I changed jobs, I needed to use Linux on my personal PC.  When I went to linux, ntfs support was incomplete so I couldn't use ntfs as a work-around.

I came by this thread while I was checking to see if freebsd has added ext4 support; I suspect that freebsd won't be supporting ext4 in the foreseeable future.


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## tnibbe (Jul 7, 2010)

You may have to change "ntfs" to "filesystem type that is supported by both freebsd and linux" -- I am not sure that freebsd supports ntfs.


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## DutchDaemon (Jul 7, 2010)

It does. For reads: base system, for read/writes, sysutils/fusefs-ntfs.


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## fronclynne (Jul 7, 2010)

The only workaround I can think of is to get a couple hundred G of on-line storage (scp access would be awesome, ftp would work; java-web-client, or flash-web-client nonsense would be worse than nothing), junk everything you don't actually need to move (cache files, &cet), tar(1) up the whole mess into appropriate sized blobs, put it up there, install FreeBSD and untar the stuff (hopefully).


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