Re: [BK PATCH] Add ext3 indexed directory (htree) support

[Ryan Cumming <ryan@completely.kicks-ass.org>]

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On September 28, 2002 07:13, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> I've been able to replicate it now fairly reliably, with the attached
> shell script and 2.4.19 with the 2.4.19-2 dxdir patch.
Yes, that was what I'm using

> It appears to
> be somewhat timing dependent, as where the directory corruption occurs
> is not consistent, but I believe it is in the split code.  Since
> e2fsck -fD packs all of the directories completely, it means that any
> attempt to add a file to directory will guarantee at least one split,
> and possibly two levels of tree splits.  Since the -D option to e2fsck
> has only been relatively recently been available, I believe this is
> why it hasn't been noticed up until now in the testing; directories
> which are indexed "naturally" as they grow don't appear to trigger the
> problem, or are very, very unlikely to trigger the problem.  (One
> potential avenue for exploration is that -D option perfectly sorts all
> of the directory entries in hash order, which doesn't normally occur
> for naturally grown directories, and this may be triggering a
> fencepost error in the split code.)
Yes, running fsck -D seemed to make my loopback filesystem more brittle. I 
have triggered corruption without fsck, but it's much more difficult. That 
seems to match your description of the problem.

- -Ryan
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