On Thu, Mar 08, 2012 at 09:42:21AM -0600, Eric Sandeen wrote:
> So, after thinking about this (and talking on irc) some more, I'm
> not convinced that a feature flag is the way to go.
>
> If we set a feature flag, suddenly old filesystems with 64-bit
> inodes will grow a new feature, and this will force a userspace
> upgrade - but there is no real new feature. This seems like a bad
> idea. My original patch (which Dave responded to with this one)
> simply made inode64 default, with no feature flags.
>
> Unless someone has a really compelling argument for the flag,
> I'm thinking this is the wrong approach after all.
>
> Perhaps I should resend the just-make-it-default patch.
>
> Comments?
I was thinking about this sort of scenario. You are right, there's no
on-disk format change. My initial thought about how to handle this was to
just make inode64 the default on 64-bit builds. I think the feature flag
idea is good because it essentially acts as a taint flag - much like the
attr2 feature flag. The difference is, in the inode64 case...
1) it's the same on-disk format
2) there are years of ambiguous-inode filesystems out there
Out of curiosity...is there a reason we can't do both? Default to 64-bit,
and slowly introduce the 64-bit inodes feature flag?
Jeff.
--
What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers?
Mechanical Engineers build weapons, Civil Engineers build targets.
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