linux-ext4 - Re: [PATCH] ext4: Remove some deprecated mount options

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Message-Id: <469EED47-CF7D-4F1C-92BA-7C7277D31448@dilger.ca>
Date:	Wed, 29 Jun 2011 12:16:09 -0600
From:	Andreas Dilger <adilger@...ger.ca>
To:	Eric Sandeen <sandeen@...hat.com>
Cc:	Lukas Czerner <lczerner@...hat.com>,
	Ric Wheeler <ricwheeler@...il.com>, linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org,
	tytso@....edu
Subject: Re: [PATCH] ext4: Remove some deprecated mount options

On 2011-06-29, at 9:01 AM, Eric Sandeen wrote:
> On 6/29/11 6:03 AM, Lukas Czerner wrote:
>> On Wed, 29 Jun 2011, Ric Wheeler wrote:
>> 
>>> On 06/28/2011 05:35 PM, Andreas Dilger wrote:
>>>> On 2011-06-28, at 9:53 AM, Lukas Czerner wrote:
>>>>> Remove deprecated mount options bsddf, nogrpid, sysvgroups which has
>>>>> been marked as deprecated since 2.6.23 and should be removed in 2.6.28.
>>>>> However it is not a big deal because those are defaults anyway and the
>>>>> options for setting their opposites still remains in kernel (however are
>>>>> still deprecated). Also push the kernel version to remove those leftover
>>>>> options further in time.
>> 
>>>> 
>>>> One problem is that these options haven't been deprecated in major vendor
>>>> releases (e.g. 2.6.32 for RHEL6 and SLES11), which is what most people are
>>>> using.  I think that they should be deprecated for at least one major
>>>> vendor release before being removed, otherwise it is nearly the same as just
>>>> deleting them on some random kernel version without telling anyone.
>>>> 
>>>> I'm not sure where you got "2.6.23" and "2.6.28" from, maybe you meant
>>>> "2.6.33",
>> 
>> Oh, sure it should be 2.6.33 and 2.6.38, sorry!
>> 
>>>> which is unfortunately just after the cutoff for both RHEL6 and SLES11SP1.
>>> 
>>> I am not sure that I follow the concern - people who use upstream follow that,
>>> people who use vendor kernels get some branched version of something old.
>>> 
>>> In fact, we try hard *not* to do things in RHEL kernels that are not
>>> upstream first. I would be perfectly happy to drop it upstream first and
>>> then deprecate it in a future RHEL release.
>> 
>> Ric has a valid point, it does not matter that the deprecation change
>> did not appear in RHEL, SLES or others because it is really a distributor
>> decision what code from what kernel version to use and communicate
>> changes with their customers.
>> 
>> That said, I do not think there is a point in upstream waiting for
>> distributors to adopt some change. Especially when it is not a question
>> feature test coverage.
> 
> *nod* I don't mean to turn this into an RH me-too fest, but we usually
> go the other way; make changes we want to see upstream first, and then
> they find their way into a distro.
> 
> We try to be pretty conservative on which of the filesystem configurations
> we support (you all know of my love for mount option matrices by now)
> so I'll shed no tear over losing these ...

I think you are all missing my point.

The reason we mark options deprecated is so that users have some chance to
see this in advance and allow them to fix up their userspace and stop using
the options so that their mounts don't start failing when they upgrade to
some kernel that doesn't support them.

If the majority of users (~= RHEL and SLES users) have never used a kernel
where these options were marked deprecated (i.e. 2.6.33+), then from their
POV it will be the same as if the options were just yanked out from under
their feet when they eventually do upgrade the kernel, since they will never
have seen an intermediate kernel.

I understand that you want to incorporate changes into RHEL that are already
upstream, so I would suggest FIRST to merge into RHEL6.x changes marking
these mount options as deprecated (which are upstream since 2.6.33), and we
can try to do the same for SLES11 SP1.  This will give a much wider exposure
to the option deprecation.  If there are no serious complaints from users
in the next year (which you are already confident of, if you want to remove
the options entirely) we can safely remove the mount options in upstream,
still leaving plenty of time to include this change into RHEL7.

Cheers, Andreas





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