Re: [PATCH v2 00/89] fs: new accessors for inode->i_ctime

[Jeff Layton <jlayton@kernel.org>]

On Thu, 2023-07-06 at 10:16 -0500, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> Jeff Layton <jlayton@kernel.org> writes:
> 
> > On Wed, 2023-07-05 at 14:58 -0400, Jeff Layton wrote:
> > > v2:
> > > - prepend patches to add missing ctime updates
> > > - add simple_rename_timestamp helper function
> > > - rename ctime accessor functions as inode_get_ctime/inode_set_ctime_*
> > > - drop individual inode_ctime_set_{sec,nsec} helpers
> > > 
> > > I've been working on a patchset to change how the inode->i_ctime is
> > > accessed in order to give us conditional, high-res timestamps for the
> > > ctime and mtime. struct timespec64 has unused bits in it that we can use
> > > to implement this. In order to do that however, we need to wrap all
> > > accesses of inode->i_ctime to ensure that bits used as flags are
> > > appropriately handled.
> > > 
> > > The patchset starts with reposts of some missing ctime updates that I
> > > spotted in the tree. It then adds a new helper function for updating the
> > > timestamp after a successful rename, and new ctime accessor
> > > infrastructure.
> > > 
> > > The bulk of the patchset is individual conversions of different
> > > subsysteme to use the new infrastructure. Finally, the patchset renames
> > > the i_ctime field to __i_ctime to help ensure that I didn't miss
> > > anything.
> > > 
> > > This should apply cleanly to linux-next as of this morning.
> > > 
> > > Most of this conversion was done via 5 different coccinelle scripts, run
> > > in succession, with a large swath of by-hand conversions to clean up the
> > > remainder.
> > > 
> > 
> > A couple of other things I should note:
> > 
> > If you sent me an Acked-by or Reviewed-by in the previous set, then I
> > tried to keep it on the patch here, since the respun patches are mostly
> > just renaming stuff from v1. Let me know if I've missed any.
> > 
> > I've also pushed the pile to my tree as this tag:
> > 
> >     https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jlayton/linux.git/tag/?h=ctime.20230705
> > 
> > In case that's easier to work with.
> 
> Are there any preliminary patches showing what you want your introduced
> accessors to turn into?  It is hard to judge the sanity of the
> introduction of wrappers without seeing what the wrappers are ultimately
> going to do.
> 
> Eric

I have a draft version of the multigrain patches on top of the wrapper
conversion I've already posted in my "mgctime-experimental" branch:

    https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jlayton/linux.git/log/?h=mgctime-experimental

The rationale is best explained in this changelog:

    https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jlayton/linux.git/commit/?h=mgctime-experimental&id=face437a144d3375afb7f70c233b0644b4edccba

The idea will be to enable this on a per-fs basis.
-- 
Jeff Layton <jlayton@kernel.org>