On Sunday 22 June 2008 07:10:06 Chris Mason wrote:
> On Sat, 2008-06-21 at 03:27 -0400, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > Synthetic xattrs are a really utterly horrible interface. Xattrs on
> > disk are nice and simple, but the Linux invention of making some up
> > on the fly, starting with the Posix ACL interface makes the
> > implementation not just utterly complicated but also confuses backup
> > programs.
>
> The idea is that backup programs already know how to do xattrs and can
> easily be changed to preserve them. Every ioctl interface we
> create/make up has to be handed coded into the backup program.
>
> I know xattrs are ugly, but we need to weigh the cost of the perfect
> interface with the availability of a common one. Dave Chinner had
> talked about using xattrs to control file behavior in XFS as well, not
> sure if that ever happened.
+1 for xattrs. From a user perspective, they're simpler than futzing around
with special btrfs programs to set/unset attributes, and as Chris points out,
having backup programs pick them up is a good thing.
If virtual xattrs are so complicated/messy to implement, perhaps they should
be made simpler. I honestly can't think of a better interface for something
like this.
-- Josh
--
Joshua J. Berry
"I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere."
-- /usr/games/fortune
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