linux-ext4 - Re: [RFC 1/2] ext4 resize: Mark the added group with EXT4_BG_INODE

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Message-ID: <20081127223511.GA10909@mit.edu>
Date:	Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:35:11 -0500
From:	Theodore Tso <tytso@....edu>
To:	Solofo.Ramangalahy@...l.net
Cc:	linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC 1/2] ext4 resize: Mark the added group with
	EXT4_BG_INODE_ZEROED flag

On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 10:30:31AM +0100, Solofo.Ramangalahy@...l.net wrote:
> This was really an RFC, as you also pointed out.
> Regarding this patch, the discussion raised the question of whether
> EXT4_BG_INODE_UNINIT or EXT4_BG_ITABLE_UNINIT would be more coherent
> than EXT4_BG_INODE_ZEROED wrt. EXT4_BG_INODE_UNINIT and
> EXT4_BG_BLOCK_UNINIT.

EXT2_BG_ITABLE_UNINIT (or EXT2_BG_ITABLE_PARTIALLY_UNINIT, to be more
correct) would have been better, yes.  That way legacy filesystems
that didn't enable uninit_bg would have bg_flags == 0, and we would
know that inode table was properly initialized.  Unfortunately we did
it the other way, where EXT2_BG_INODE_ZEROED is set when the inode
table is initialized, instead of the other way around.

> This is also the first use of EXT4_BG_INODE_ZEROED in the kernel, so
> an occasion to revisit the name.

Unfortunately, we've been shipping mke2fs in e2fsprogs that sets the
EXT4_BG_INODE_ZERO for newly created filesystem, and if the
lazy_itable_init configuration parameter is set, it doesn't initialize
the inode table and leaves bg_flags set to EXT2_BG_INODE_UNINIT and
EXT2_BG_BLOCK_UNINIT. 

Distributions are already shipping e2fsprogs with this, and there are
ext4 filesystems out there in the wild, so it is indeed probably way
too late to change this.

					- Ted
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