0/5 EXT2/3 Updates

Hi Marcelo,

I would appreciate it if you would consider applying these patches for 2.4.24:

Patch 1:  Fix VM overcommit accounting of truncated pages pinned by ext3
Patch 2:  Fix Compatibility problem with 2.6 SELinux users who try to
        boot 2.4 kernels (from sct)
Patch 3:  Add forward compatibility for on-line resizing
Patch 4:  Add forward compatibility for expanded inodes
Patch 5:  Add HTREE indexed directory support

Most of these patches have been tested for quite a while as independent patches against 2.4, as well as in Linux 2.6.0. Patches 2, 3, and 4 add better forward compatibility for the EXT2 and EXT3 filesystems. Patch #5 is the largests, and adds the HTREE support. This is a roll-up patch that includes all of the various bugfixes that are in Linux 2.6.0.

(Note: There are some additional 2.4 ext2/3 patches including those for the Orlov allocator, that are not included in this patch set; the ones included here are the ones which I believe are most critical for inclusion in the 2.4 mainline.)

- Ted

Will this work on an NFS server? I remember an issue regarding a cookie representing the directory offset: The problem was that the conversion to HTREE of a directory while at the same time reading that directory over NFS would basically invalidate the directory offset.

Frank

Yes, it will work over an NFS server. We solve this problem by having readdir() always return directory entries of small directories (which are eligible to be converted into HTREE format) in hash order.

- Ted