Date:   Tue, 10 Jul 2018 10:18:06 -0700
From:   "Darrick J. Wong" <darrick.wong@...cle.com>
To:     tytso@....edu, darrick.wong@...cle.com
Cc:     linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH 13/13] ext4: import extended attributes chapter from wiki
 page

From: Darrick J. Wong <darrick.wong@...cle.com>

Import the chapter about extended attributes from the on-disk format wiki
page into the kernel documentation.

Signed-off-by: Darrick J. Wong <darrick.wong@...cle.com>
---
 .../filesystems/ext4/ondisk/attributes.rst         |  191 ++++++++++++++++++++
 Documentation/filesystems/ext4/ondisk/dynamic.rst  |    1 
 2 files changed, 192 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/filesystems/ext4/ondisk/attributes.rst


diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/ondisk/attributes.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/ondisk/attributes.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..0b01b67b81fe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/ondisk/attributes.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,191 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+Extended Attributes
+-------------------
+
+Extended attributes (xattrs) are typically stored in a separate data
+block on the disk and referenced from inodes via ``inode.i_file_acl*``.
+The first use of extended attributes seems to have been for storing file
+ACLs and other security data (selinux). With the ``user_xattr`` mount
+option it is possible for users to store extended attributes so long as
+all attribute names begin with “user”; this restriction seems to have
+disappeared as of Linux 3.0.
+
+There are two places where extended attributes can be found. The first
+place is between the end of each inode entry and the beginning of the
+next inode entry. For example, if inode.i\_extra\_isize = 28 and
+sb.inode\_size = 256, then there are 256 - (128 + 28) = 100 bytes
+available for in-inode extended attribute storage. The second place
+where extended attributes can be found is in the block pointed to by
+``inode.i_file_acl``. As of Linux 3.11, it is not possible for this
+block to contain a pointer to a second extended attribute block (or even
+the remaining blocks of a cluster). In theory it is possible for each
+attribute's value to be stored in a separate data block, though as of
+Linux 3.11 the code does not permit this.
+
+Keys are generally assumed to be ASCIIZ strings, whereas values can be
+strings or binary data.
+
+Extended attributes, when stored after the inode, have a header
+``ext4_xattr_ibody_header`` that is 4 bytes long:
+
+.. list-table::
+   :widths: 1 1 1 77
+   :header-rows: 1
+
+   * - Offset
+     - Type
+     - Name
+     - Description
+   * - 0x0
+     - \_\_le32
+     - h\_magic
+     - Magic number for identification, 0xEA020000. This value is set by the
+       Linux driver, though e2fsprogs doesn't seem to check it(?)
+
+The beginning of an extended attribute block is in
+``struct ext4_xattr_header``, which is 32 bytes long:
+
+.. list-table::
+   :widths: 1 1 1 77
+   :header-rows: 1
+
+   * - Offset
+     - Type
+     - Name
+     - Description
+   * - 0x0
+     - \_\_le32
+     - h\_magic
+     - Magic number for identification, 0xEA020000.
+   * - 0x4
+     - \_\_le32
+     - h\_refcount
+     - Reference count.
+   * - 0x8
+     - \_\_le32
+     - h\_blocks
+     - Number of disk blocks used.
+   * - 0xC
+     - \_\_le32
+     - h\_hash
+     - Hash value of all attributes.
+   * - 0x10
+     - \_\_le32
+     - h\_checksum
+     - Checksum of the extended attribute block.
+   * - 0x14
+     - \_\_u32
+     - h\_reserved[2]
+     - Zero.
+
+The checksum is calculated against the FS UUID, the 64-bit block number
+of the extended attribute block, and the entire block (header +
+entries).
+
+Following the ``struct ext4_xattr_header`` or
+``struct ext4_xattr_ibody_header`` is an array of
+``struct ext4_xattr_entry``; each of these entries is at least 16 bytes
+long. When stored in an external block, the ``struct ext4_xattr_entry``
+entries must be stored in sorted order. The sort order is
+``e_name_index``, then ``e_name_len``, and finally ``e_name``.
+Attributes stored inside an inode do not need be stored in sorted order.
+
+.. list-table::
+   :widths: 1 1 1 77
+   :header-rows: 1
+
+   * - Offset
+     - Type
+     - Name
+     - Description
+   * - 0x0
+     - \_\_u8
+     - e\_name\_len
+     - Length of name.
+   * - 0x1
+     - \_\_u8
+     - e\_name\_index
+     - Attribute name index. There is a discussion of this below.
+   * - 0x2
+     - \_\_le16
+     - e\_value\_offs
+     - Location of this attribute's value on the disk block where it is stored.
+       Multiple attributes can share the same value. For an inode attribute
+       this value is relative to the start of the first entry; for a block this
+       value is relative to the start of the block (i.e. the header).
+   * - 0x4
+     - \_\_le32
+     - e\_value\_inum
+     - The inode where the value is stored. Zero indicates the value is in the
+       same block as this entry. This field is only used if the
+       INCOMPAT\_EA\_INODE feature is enabled.
+   * - 0x8
+     - \_\_le32
+     - e\_value\_size
+     - Length of attribute value.
+   * - 0xC
+     - \_\_le32
+     - e\_hash
+     - Hash value of attribute name and attribute value. The kernel doesn't
+       update the hash for in-inode attributes, so for that case this value
+       must be zero, because e2fsck validates any non-zero hash regardless of
+       where the xattr lives.
+   * - 0x10
+     - char
+     - e\_name[e\_name\_len]
+     - Attribute name. Does not include trailing NULL.
+
+Attribute values can follow the end of the entry table. There appears to
+be a requirement that they be aligned to 4-byte boundaries. The values
+are stored starting at the end of the block and grow towards the
+xattr\_header/xattr\_entry table. When the two collide, the overflow is
+put into a separate disk block. If the disk block fills up, the
+filesystem returns -ENOSPC.
+
+The first four fields of the ``ext4_xattr_entry`` are set to zero to
+mark the end of the key list.
+
+Attribute Name Indices
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Logically speaking, extended attributes are a series of key=value pairs.
+The keys are assumed to be NULL-terminated strings. To reduce the amount
+of on-disk space that the keys consume, the beginning of the key string
+is matched against the attribute name index. If a match is found, the
+attribute name index field is set, and matching string is removed from
+the key name. Here is a map of name index values to key prefixes:
+
+.. list-table::
+   :widths: 1 79
+   :header-rows: 1
+
+   * - Name Index
+     - Key Prefix
+   * - 0
+     - (no prefix)
+   * - 1
+     - “user.”
+   * - 2
+     - “system.posix\_acl\_access”
+   * - 3
+     - “system.posix\_acl\_default”
+   * - 4
+     - “trusted.”
+   * - 6
+     - “security.”
+   * - 7
+     - “system.” (inline\_data only?)
+   * - 8
+     - “system.richacl” (SuSE kernels only?)
+
+For example, if the attribute key is “user.fubar”, the attribute name
+index is set to 1 and the “fubar” name is recorded on disk.
+
+POSIX ACLs
+~~~~~~~~~~
+
+POSIX ACLs are stored in a reduced version of the Linux kernel (and
+libacl's) internal ACL format. The key difference is that the version
+number is different (1) and the ``e_id`` field is only stored for named
+user and group ACLs.
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/ondisk/dynamic.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/ondisk/dynamic.rst
index f2f14822b0f5..bb0c84333341 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/ondisk/dynamic.rst
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/ondisk/dynamic.rst
@@ -9,3 +9,4 @@ allocated to files.
 .. include:: inodes.rst
 .. include:: ifork.rst
 .. include:: directory.rst
+.. include:: attributes.rst

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