Re: [PATCH 2/4] libext2fs: add quota to libext2fs

["Theodore Tso" <tytso@mit.edu>]

On Fri, May 29, 2026 at 01:57:14PM -0500, eaujames@ddn.com wrote:
> add quota related interface to libext2fs and install the
> relevant headers.

The reason why the quota functions are in the libsupport library as
opposed to the libext2fs directory is that the quota functions weren't
ready to be moved into libext2fs.  The libext2fs library is published
as a shared library, so the function ABI's must be stable.  This
requirement does not exist for libsupport.a (which is only statically
linked, so function stability is not a requirement).  The functions in
libsupport also in some cases try to write to the standard out, which
is not allowed for libext2fs.

As a result of this, the quota and ea_inode feature is not directly
supported by libext2fs, and hence, not by programs like fuse2fs.

So to address the problem you are trying to solve in this patch series
--- which is to allow e2fsck to correctly handle processing processing
an orphaned file which has an extended attribute value stored in an
inode and quota tracking enabled --- we have two choices

* Clean up the quota handling functions so we can move safely move
  them from lib/support to lib/ext2fs.  This is the long-term plan /
  goal, since it would also allow us to add support for ea_inode and
  quota into programs like fuse2fs.

* Don't add the functionality to lib/ext2fs, but just arrange to have
  release_orphan_inode() in e2fsck/super.c call the functions in
  lib/support as necessary.  (This is how we handle quota support in
  e2fsck today.  We just didn't deal with the combination of ea_inode
  | quota correctly.)

						- Ted