diff -Nur attr-2.4.39/man/man1/attr.1 attr-2.4.39-rrt/man/man1/attr.1 --- attr-2.4.39/man/man1/attr.1 2007-09-11 03:00:50.000000000 +0100 +++ attr-2.4.39-rrt/man/man1/attr.1 2007-10-17 13:26:49.000000000 +0100 @@ -16,12 +16,6 @@ .SH OVERVIEW Extended attributes implement the ability for a user to attach name:value pairs to objects within the XFS filesystem. -.P -They could be used to store meta-information about the file. -For example "character-set=kanji" could tell a document browser to -use the Kanji character set when displaying that document -and "thumbnail=..." could provide a reduced resolution overview of a -high resolution graphic image. .PP This document describes the .I attr @@ -32,7 +26,13 @@ and .IR setfattr (1) documentation. -.P +.PP +Extended attributes can be used to store meta-information about the file. +For example "character-set=kanji" could tell a document browser to +use the Kanji character set when displaying that document +and "thumbnail=..." could provide a reduced resolution overview of a +high resolution graphic image. +.PP In the XFS filesystem, the .I names can be up to 256 bytes in length, terminated by the first 0 byte. @@ -41,10 +41,10 @@ The .I values can be up to 64KB of arbitrary binary data. -.P +.PP Attributes can be attached to all types of XFS inodes: regular files, directories, symbolic links, device nodes, etc. -.P +.PP XFS uses 2 disjoint attribute name spaces associated with every filesystem object. They are the diff -Nur attr-2.4.39/man/man5/attr.5 attr-2.4.39-rrt/man/man5/attr.5 --- attr-2.4.39/man/man5/attr.5 2007-09-11 03:00:50.000000000 +0100 +++ attr-2.4.39-rrt/man/man5/attr.5 2007-10-17 13:35:41.000000000 +0100 @@ -32,12 +32,8 @@ Space consumed for extended attributes is counted towards the disk quotas of the file owner and file group. .PP -Currently, support for extended attributes is implemented on Linux by -the ext2, ext3 and XFS filesystem patches, which can be downloaded from -.B http://acl.bestbits.at/ -and -.B http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/ -respectively. +Currently, support for extended attributes is implemented on Linux by the +ext2, ext3, ext4, XFS, JFS and reiserfs filesystems. .SH EXTENDED ATTRIBUTE NAMESPACES Attribute names are zero-terminated strings. The attribute name is always specified in the fully qualified @@ -106,16 +102,23 @@ .SH FILESYSTEM DIFFERENCES The kernel and the filesystem may place limits on the maximum number and size of extended attributes that can be associated with a file. +Some file systems, such as ext2/3 and reiserfs, require the filesystem +to be mounted with the +.B user_xattr +mount option in order for extended user attributes to be used. +.PP +In the current ext2, ext3 and ext4 filesystem implementations, each +extended attribute must fit on a single filesystem block (1024, 2048 +or 4096 bytes, depending on the block size specified when the +filesystem was created). +.PP +In the XFS and reiserfs filesystem implementations, there is no +practical limit on the number or size of extended attributes +associated with a file, and the algorithms used to store extended +attribute information on disk are scalable. .PP -In the current ext2 and ext3 filesystem implementations, all extended -attributes must fit on a single filesystem block (1024, 2048 or 4096 bytes, -depending on the block size specified when the filesystem -was created). This limit may be removed in a future version. -.PP -In the XFS filesystem implementation, there is no practical limit on the -number of extended attributes associated with a file, and the algorithms -used to store extended attribute information on disk are scalable (stored -either inline in the inode, as an extent, or in a B+ tree). +In the JFS filesystem implementation, names can be up to 255 bytes and +values up to 65,535 bytes. .SH ADDITIONAL NOTES Since the filesystems on which extended attributes are stored might also be used on architectures with a different byte order and machine word