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[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 Free Software
Foundation, Inc."]]

[[!meta license="""[[!toggle id="license" text="GFDL 1.2+"]][[!toggleable
id="license" text="Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
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any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant
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is included in the section entitled [[GNU Free Documentation
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# Implementation

  * [[filetype]] option

  * [[Hurd-specific_extensions]]

  * [[Page_cache]]

  * [[metadata_caching]]

  * [[internal_allocator]]


## Large Stores

The `ext2fs` translator from the upstream Hurd code base can only handle file
systems with sizes of less than roughly 2 GiB.

[[!tag open_issue_hurd]]


### Ognyan's Work

  * Ognyan Kulev, [[*Supporting Large ext2 File Systems in the
    Hurd*|ogi-fosdem2005.mgp]], 2005, at FOSDEM

  * Ognyan Kulev, [[large_stores]]

  * <http://kerneltrap.org/node/4429>

Ognyan's patch lifts this limitation (and is being used in the
[[Debian_GNU/Hurd_distribution|running/debian]]), but it introduces another
incompatibility: `ext2fs` then only supports block sizes of 4096 bytes.
Smaller block sizes are commonly automatically selected by `mke2fs` when using
small backend stores, like floppy devices.


#### IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2012-06-30

    <braunr> at least having the same api in the debian package and the git
      source would be great (in reference to the large store patch ofc)
    <youpi> braunr: the api part could be merged perhaps
    <youpi> it's very small apparently
    <antrik> braunr: the large store patch is a sad story. when it was first
      submitted, one of the maintainers raised some concerns. the other didn't
      share these (don't remember who is who), but the concerned one never
      followed up with details. so it has been in limbo ever since. tschwinge
      once promised to take it up, but didn't get around to it so far. plus,
      the original author himself mentioned once that he didn't consider it
      finished...
    <youpi> antrik: it's clearly not finished
    <youpi> there are XXXs here and there
    <braunr> it's called an RC1 and RC2 is mentioned in the release notes
    <antrik> youpi: well, that doesn't stop most other projects from commiting
      stuff... including most emphatically the original Hurd code :-)
    <youpi> what do you refer to my "that" ? :)
    <braunr> "XXX"
    <youpi> right
    <youpi> at the time it made sense to delay applying
    <youpi> but I guess by nowadays standard we should just as well commit it
    <youpi> it works enough for Debian, already
    <youpi> there is just one bug I nkow about
    <youpi> the apt database file keeps haveing the wrong size, fixed by e2fsck
    <pinotree> youpi: remember that patch should be fixed in the offset
      declaration in diskfs.h
    <youpi> I don't remember about that
    <youpi> did we fix it in the debian package?
    <pinotree> nope
    <youpi> you had issues when fixing it, didn't you?
    <youpi> (I don't remember where I can find the details about this)
    <pinotree> i changed it, recompiled hurd and installed it, started a perl
      rebuild and when running one of the two lfs tests it hard locked the vm
      after ext2fs was taking 100% cpu for a bit
    <pinotree> i don't exclude i could have done something stupid on my side
      though
    <youpi> or there could just be actual issues, uncovered here
    <youpi> which can be quite probable


##### IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-03-19

    <braunr> youpi: i'm back on polishing the large store patch
    <braunr> did you remember seeing something else than the bzero/memset
      out-of-scope changes ?
    <braunr> (i mean, readily noticeable)
    <youpi> I don't remember
    <braunr> ok
    <braunr> the original code already assumes mmap succeeds
    <braunr> is it ok to consider the patch can do the same ?
    <youpi> I'd say so
    <braunr> ok
    <braunr> youpi: actually, it looks like a good part of the patch isn't
      related to large stores
    <braunr> for example, in ext2fs/inode.c, there are calls to
      dino_ref/dino_deref
    <youpi> hum
    <braunr> i'm not sure at all these have anything to do with handling large
      stores
    <youpi> but dino_ref is introduced by this patch, isn't it?
    <braunr> it replaces dino
    <youpi> yes, it replaces it because the dino() approach can't work beyond
      2GiB
    <braunr> i see
    <braunr> youpi: i'd like to replace the recursive call to
      disk_cache_block_ref with a goto, is that fine with you ?
    <youpi> looks ok to me
    <youpi> better than relying on tail recursion
    <braunr> that's the idea :)


#### [[libpager]] API change

##### IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-03-04

    <braunr> youpi: i don't remember exactly your answer when i asked about
      considering the ext2 large store patch for merging
    <youpi> there's just an API change that it introduces
    <youpi> but otherwise I'd say we should just do it
    <braunr> ok
    <youpi> I've just checked the API change again
    <youpi> it's simply adding a notify_on_evict parameter
    <youpi> and a pager_notify_evict callback
    <braunr> yes
    <youpi> I'd say we mostly need to polish this
    <youpi> ah, there is the same parameter on diskfs_start_disk_pager


##### IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-04-23

    <braunr> and i'm working again on the ext2fs large store patch
    <braunr> i finished separating the libpager interface change from the rest,
      as Thomas suggested, so a new version should be ready soon


#### `EXT2FS_DEBUG`

##### IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-03-04

    <braunr> youpi: do we want EXT2FS_DEBUG defined upstream ?
    <youpi> I don't really have an opinion on this
    <youpi> stuffing it in the large store patch is not good of course
    <youpi> I wonder whether we want it by default.
    <braunr> it is currently defined by the patch
    <braunr> (in the debian package i mean)
    <youpi> I've just seen that yes
    <braunr> i won't include it upstream, and if we decide to keep this
      behaviour, we can add a patch just for that
    <braunr> or a define
    <braunr> err
    <braunr> a configure option
    <youpi> ok


## Sync Interval

[[!tag open_issue_hurd]]


### IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2012-10-08

    <braunr> btw, how about we increase our ext2 sync interval to 30 seconds,
      like others do ?
    <braunr> not really because others do it that way, but because it severely
      breaks performance on the hurd
    <braunr> and 30 seems like a reasonable amount (better than 5 at least)

That would be a nice improvement, but only after writeback throttling is implemented.


## Stripped vs. Unstripped `ext2fs.static`

[[!tag open_issue_hurd]]


### IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-17

    <teythoon> I always had some trouble with dropping a rebuild ext2fs.static
      into my test system and I never figured out why
    <teythoon> I just followed a hunch and stripped the binary, and all of the
      sudden it works
    <teythoon> any ideas why?
    <tschwinge> teythoon: I quick search found me:
      <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?8497> and
      <http://news.gmane.org/find-root.php?message_id=%3c4090243E.2040605%40comcast.net%3e>.
    <teythoon> tschwinge: ugh, thanks for the pointers ;)
    <tschwinge> teythoon: They won't help too much I fear.  Anyway, good
      intuition (or whatever) ;-) that you found this out.
    <tschwinge> teythoon: Not exactly related to stripped/unstripped per se
      (that is, debug information), but in the past we've had an issue about
      relro (see binutils/glibc, <http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/189>),
      where a variable (that erroneously happend to be in such a read-only
      section, if I remember correct) was tried to be modified -- which worked
      "sometimes": depending on where exactly it was located in the binary
      (which shifted around a page
    <tschwinge> boundary by stripped/unstripped), it'd segfault or not.  Burnt
      several days on that before Samuel (IIRC) eventually figured it out.
    <teythoon> tschwinge: well, thanks anyway ;)


## Increased Memory Consumption

### IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-18

    <braunr> ext2fs is using a ginormous amount of memory on darnassus since i
      last updated the hurd package :/
    <braunr> i wonder if my ext2fs large store patches rework have introduced a
      regression
    <braunr> the order of magnitude here is around 1.5G virtual space :/
    <braunr> it used to take up to 3 times less before that
    <braunr> looks like my patches didn't make it into the latest hurd package
    <braunr> teythoon: looks like there definitely is a new leak in ext2fs
    <teythoon> :/
    <braunr> memory only
    <braunr> the number of ports looks stable relative to file system usage
    <teythoon> braunr: I tested my patches on my development machine, it's up
      for 14 days (yay libvirt :) and never encountered problems like this
    <braunr> i've been building glibc to reach that state
    <teythoon> hm, that's a heavy load indeed
    <teythoon> could be the file name tracking stuff, I tried to make sure that
      everything is freed, but I might have missed something
    <braunr> teythoon: simply running htop run shows a slight, regular increase
      in physical memory usage in ext2fs
    <pinotree> old procfs stikes again? :)
    <teythoon> braunr: I see that as well... curious...
    <braunr> 16:46 < teythoon> could be the file name tracking stuff, I tried
      to make sure that everything is freed, but I might have missed something
    <braunr> how knows, maybe completely unrelated
    <teythoon> the tracking patch isn't that big, I've gone over it twice today
      and it still seems reasonable to me
    <braunr> hm


# Documentation

  * <http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/ext2.html>

  * <http://www.nongnu.org/ext2-doc/>