linux-ext4 - [Bug 196405] mkdir mishandles st_nlink in ext4 directory with 64997 subdirectories

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Message-ID: <bug-196405-13602-mHgHf1tdbZ@https.bugzilla.kernel.org/>
Date:   Tue, 25 Jul 2017 09:05:59 +0000
From:   bugzilla-daemon@...zilla.kernel.org
To:     linux-ext4@...nel.org
Subject: [Bug 196405] mkdir mishandles st_nlink in ext4 directory with 64997
 subdirectories

https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=196405

--- Comment #27 from Paul Eggert (eggert@...ucla.edu) ---
(In reply to Theodore Tso from comment #22)
> Paul is asserting that there is vast
> amount of breakage because ext4 can return an st_nlinks value of 1 on a
> directory, to the extent that he believes we should withdrawing the
> dir_nlinks feature.

I think this gets my most recent proposal backwards. At the end of Comment 17,
I proposed that the ext4 code act as if dir_nlink is always set. That's what
the code has been doing for a decade anyway. All that's missing is
documentation which says "the dir_nlink setting is irrelevant, and the file
system always acts as if dir_nlink is set", or words to that effect.

Although in hindsight perhaps the dir_nlink flag should have been implemented
properly, it wasn't and there's little point to implementing it properly now:
every application using ext4 must work with the current behavior anyway.

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