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From: Seiler Thomas (seiler.thomas_at_gmx.net)
Date: Wed 21 Aug 2002 - 18:54:45 BST


Hello everyone

I've just come across some bad news for vserver / ctx...

The EXT2_IMMUTABLE_LINK_FL bit (value 0x00008000) has now another
meaning:

http://e2fsprogs.bkbits.net:8080/e2fsprogs/search/?expr=EXT2_NOTAIL_FL&
search=ChangeSet+comments

They use it to indicate that the kernel should not merge 2 file's tails into
one block to save space. (because this would break LILO and the like...)
I suppose this behavior is planned for the next stable Kernel releases.

This would mean, that such a new Kernel might take a immutable linkage
invert flag set by some unify script as a notail flag (and i have no idea if
this
has the potential to break anything. Probably not, but hey, you never know.)

As there are plenty of bits left unassigned, it should be no problem to use
another bit instead (i.e value 0x00010000), and it would be easy to write a
litte perl script, which updates the attributes on existing filesystems. (If
no
one else volunteers, i would write one, but expect poor code quality :-)

It would even be possible to logicaly OR the two bits in the Kernel say in
the next three relases, so that the change would be smother.

Best would be, if the maintainer of the ext2progs package could define the
bit in the next relase so that every one sees, that this bit is already
taken.
Otherwise, the hole situation could repeat.

Best Regards,
Thomas Seiler


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