Hi, This is the implementation for large EA support in ext4. Note that this also helps to have a larger number of EAs since large EAs get written out to a new inode instead of the EA block. If value of an attribute is greater than 2048 bytes the value is not saved in the external EA block, instead it is saved in an inode. The EA entry saves the inode number in e_value_inum field (earlier this was e_value_block that was unused). A new EXT4_FEATURE_INCOMPAT_EA_INODE feature has been added for this. These inodes are not linked into any directory since a single directory per filesystem will cause a bottleneck. Instead a "goal" argument has been added to the ext4_new_inode() function to help a localized selection of the EA inode. Since ext4_new_inode() only used the dir argument to choose the group, we use goal to do the same. This "large_xattr" feature is not enabled automatically and needs to enabled during mkfs or using tune2fs. I have also attached the e2fsprogs patch for the same. Your feedback/review/comments are appreciated. Signed-off-by: Andreas Dilger Signed-off-by: Kalpak Shah Thanks, Kalpak.