Re: [PATCH 1/3] xfs/018: remove inline xattr recovery tests

Darrick J. Wong
2026-02-06T06:22:22Z

On Thu, Feb 05, 2026 at 09:59:42PM -0800, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 05, 2026 at 08:56:24AM -0800, Darrick J. Wong wrote:
> > "In Linux 7.0 we've changed the extended attribute update code to try to
> > take a shortcut for performance reasons. Before walking through the
> > attr intent state machine (slow), the update will check to see if the
> > attr structure is in short format and will stay in that format after the
> > change. If so, then the incore inode can be updated and logged, and the
> > update is complete (fast) in a single transaction.
> >
> > "(Obviously, for complex attr structures or large changes we still walk
> > through the intent machinery.)
> >
> > "However, xfs/018 tests the behavior of the "larp" error injector, which
> > only triggers from inside the attr intent state machine. Therefore, the
> > short format tests don't actually trip the injector. It makes no sense
> > to add a new larp injection callsite for the shortcut because either the
> > single transaction gets written to disk or it doesn't."
>
> Make sense, but from looking at the test I'm still a bit confused
> why it fails (vs just not testing something too useful)

The golden output no longer matches because the attr update doesn't
return EIO and shut down the filesystem due to the larp injection.

--D

> >
> > > Only vaguely related, but should we ensure to always clear error
> > > tags after the test runs to ensure they don't leak into other tests?
> >
> > They go away with _scratch_remount because error tags only live as long
> > as the mount.
>
> True. While still leaves me puzzled why generic/753 now hits attr log
> recovery for me sometimes.
>
>