Ext3 users - Feb 2002 - Feature-beg: remounting from ro to rw allows changing data=x

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I was a thread on the list archive from a few months ago, about a user
who had added 'data=journal' in /etc/fstab.  The system stopped working
properly because the device couldn't be remounted rw after fsck ran -
because ext3 wouldn't allow changing the journalling options on remount.

I can understand that changing data=x in general is difficult to
implement and not that important.  But I would like to make one
suggestion.  If the device is mounted read-only, then the journalling
mode is not important (so the kernel message should say 'mounted
read-only' instead of 'mounted with data=ordered' or whatever), and
changing from ro mount to rw mount should allow any data=x mode, just as
mounting a previously non-mounted filesystem does.

I think this makes reasonable sense - after all, who is worried about
the exact journalling options on a read-only device? - and it would
allow options specified in /etc/fstab to Just Work without needing to
set flags in the filesystem itself or pass special kernel parameters.

In fact, you could even go so far as to say that ext3 in read-only mode
should be treated as plain ext2.  But that is probably more
controversial.

- -- 
Ed Avis <epa98@doc.ic.ac.uk>
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