Re: [PATCH RFC 03/29] fs: add FS_XFLAG_VERITY for verity files

Amir Goldstein
2025-07-29T12:06:39Z

On Tue, Jul 29, 2025 at 12:35 PM Andrey Albershteyn <aalbersh@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> On 2025-07-29 11:53:09, Amir Goldstein wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 28, 2025 at 10:31 PM Andrey Albershteyn <aalbersh@redhat.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > From: Andrey Albershteyn <aalbersh@redhat.com>
> > >
> > > Add extended attribute FS_XFLAG_VERITY for inodes with fs-verity
> > > enabled.
> >
> > Oh man! Please don't refer to this as an "extended attribute".
> >
> > I was quite surprised to see actually how many times the term
> > "extended attribute" was used in commit messages in your series
> > that Linus just merged including 4 such references in the Kernel-doc
> > comments of security_inode_file_[sg]etattr(). :-/
>
> You can comment on this, I'm fine with fixing these, I definitely
> don't have all the context to know the best suitable terms.
>
> >
> > The terminology used in Documentation/filesystem/vfs.rst and fileattr.h
> > are some permutations of "miscellaneous file flags and attributes".
> > Not perfect, but less confusing than "extended attributes", which are
> > famously known as something else.
>
> Yeah sorry, it's very difficult to find out what is named how and
> what is outdated.

indeed.

>
> I will update commit messages to "file flags".
>

"file attributes" is better fit IMO considering the method name fileatte_*
and structs file_attr file_kattr and the comments in file_attr.c/fileatttr.h.

Thanks,
Amir.