Ext3 users - Mar 2003 - Updated 2.4 htree patches available for 2.4.21rc5

I've backported all of the bugfixes to the 2.5 dxdir/htree patches to
2.4, and have created a new set of patches for Linux 2.4.21rc5.  At this
point it *looks* like we've fixed all of the htree bugs that people have
reported, including the brelse bug, the memory leak bugs, and the NFS
compatibility problems.

I've done *very* light testing, and things seem to work, but I'm now
looking for some brave souls/guinea pigs to give this some more strenous
testing.  Please don't use this on production systems just yet, until
some people report success.  In particular, I'm looking for people who
had trouble with NFS to confirm whether or not this patch fixes their
problems or not.  If you do try out the patch, please let me know how
well (or how poorly) it works.

The patches can be found at:

	http://thunk.org/tytso/linux/extfs-2.4-update/extfs-update-2.4.21rc5

Also available are the patches broken out into separate diffs, here:

	http://thunk.org/tytso/linux/extfs-2.4-update/broken-out-2.4.21rc5/

In the broken out directory, only the first patch is the htree patch.
The rest are some other 2.5 features which I've backported to 2.4,
including forward compatibility for upcoming future extfs upgrades
including dynamic filesystem resizing and expanded inodes for things
like subsecond timestamps.  The patches also add support for setting
default mount options via tune2fs, and the improved Orlov block
allocator.

So if you're feeling adventurour, please backup your systems (you should
*always* backup your systems, even when you're not trying out new kernel
patches :-), and give these patches a whirl, and let me know how it
goes.  Thanks!

						- Ted

On Saturday 08 March 2003 14:13, Theodore Ts'o wrote:

Hi Theodore,
> like subsecond timestamps.  The patches also add support for setting
> default mount options via tune2fs, and the improved Orlov block
> allocator.
The Orlov patch is missing ext3 mount option support (orlov|oldalloc)

Patch attached.

ciao, Marc

On Sat, Mar 08, 2003 at 08:13:42AM -0500, Theodore Ts'o
wrote:
> I've backported all of the bugfixes to the 2.5 dxdir/htree patches to
> 2.4, and have created a new set of patches for Linux 2.4.21rc5.  At this
> point it *looks* like we've fixed all of the htree bugs that people
have
> reported, including the brelse bug, the memory leak bugs, and the NFS
> compatibility problems.
   Applied
http://thunk.org/tytso/linux/extfs-2.4-update/extfs-update-2.4.21rc5
to 2.4.21-pre5-ac1, which also has linux-abi-2.4.18.0 and lm_sensors
applied to it. I first undid the previous htree and fix patches.
   The result was a system that went slower and slower and eventually
took several minutes to redraw X and finally died. Wouldn't even respond
to networking from other systems. Turned computer of and on and it
happened two more times. Went back to previous kernel, no problems.
   Don't see anything from syslog (except annoying 'VFS: brelse: Trying
to free free buffer' which has been there seemingly forever).
   When I tried the previous htree patches, had problems with Orlov
applied. Haven't tried removing Orlov this time.
   Willing to try things in off times, or give more info about system if
requested.

* Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>:
> I've backported all of the bugfixes to the 2.5 dxdir/htree patches to
> 2.4, and have created a new set of patches for Linux 2.4.21rc5.  At this
> point it *looks* like we've fixed all of the htree bugs that people
have
> reported, including the brelse bug, the memory leak bugs, and the NFS
> compatibility problems.
I applied the patches and booted yesterday, without changing the
filesystem - it's still plain ext3. The machine still runs.

Anyway, I think I'll try activating htree now
-- 
Ralf Hildebrandt (Im Auftrag des Referat V a)   Ralf.Hildebrandt@charite.de
Charite Campus Mitte                            Tel.  +49 (0)30-450 570-155
Referat V a - Kommunikationsnetze -             Fax.  +49 (0)30-450 570-916
How many viruses must arrive before people realize, 
that M$ is just not ready for the enterprise?