Re: 2.6.36 merge plans

[Steve French <smfrench-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>]

On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 6:52 PM, Jeff Layton <jlayton-H+wXaHxf7aLQT0dZR+AlfA@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Jul 2010 16:55:58 -0500
> Steve French <smfrench-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> For   cifs: use CreationTime like an i_generation field
>> Seems like a good idea, but what happens if server is unix one without
>> birth time, eg samba with no xattr support and changes creation time
>> (ie uses last mtime or some such) frequently - e.g. on every write?
>> Would that break your aprroach?
>>
>
> Aye, there's the rub. This makes a ton of sense for windows where we
> can count on a valid create time. Samba servers may be problematic here,
> but with most of them we'll be using unix extensions and you don't get
> create times there anyway. The problem may be samba or other
> non-windows servers without unix extensions that fake up create times.
>
> We could consider a mount option or something to ignore create times,
> but how to document when it should be used? IMO, fake create times are
> really a server bug. Do we hobble servers where this is done correctly?

Jeff,
I merged the other patches from your tree, but wanted to think more about
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/jlayton/linux.git;a=commit;h=e5b7e004ed0ccdcf5fd3b1b0aff2a1a45023912b
ie the CreationTime i_generation patch and what happens to servers
which don't have creation time - presumably e.g. most Samba servers
on Linux can't get to creation time.  Any additional thoughts on this?

-- 
Thanks,

Steve