Re: [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

Re: [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Christoph Hellwig]

Please add the relevant mailing lists when adding new user interfaces.

And I'm not sure hacks working around the proper large folio
implementation are something that should be merged upstream.

On Fri, Apr 10, 2026 at 01:16:23AM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> enum {
>        F2FS_XATTR_FADV_LARGEFOLIO,
> };
> 
> unsigned int value = BIT(F2FS_XATTR_FADV_LARGEFOLIO);
> 
> 1. setxattr(file, "user.fadvise", &value, sizeof(unsigned int), 0)
>  -> register the inode number for large folio
> 2. chmod(0400, file)
>  -> make Read-Only
> 3. fsync() && close() && open(READ)
>  -> f2fs_iget() with large folio
> 4. open(WRITE), mkwrite on mmap, chmod(WRITE)
>  -> return error
> 5. close() and open()
>  -> goto #3
> 6. unlink
>  -> deregister the inode number
> 
> Suggested-by: Akilesh Kailash <akailash@google.com>
> Signed-off-by: Jaegeuk Kim <jaegeuk@kernel.org>
> ---
>  
>   Log from v1:
>    - add a condition in f2fs_drop_inode
>    - add Doc
> 
>  Documentation/filesystems/f2fs.rst | 41 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++----
>  fs/f2fs/checkpoint.c               |  2 +-
>  fs/f2fs/data.c                     |  2 +-
>  fs/f2fs/f2fs.h                     |  1 +
>  fs/f2fs/file.c                     | 11 ++++++--
>  fs/f2fs/inode.c                    | 19 +++++++++++---
>  fs/f2fs/super.c                    |  7 +++++
>  fs/f2fs/xattr.c                    | 35 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-
>  fs/f2fs/xattr.h                    |  6 +++++
>  9 files changed, 111 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/f2fs.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/f2fs.rst
> index 7e4031631286..de899d0d3088 100644
> --- a/Documentation/filesystems/f2fs.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/f2fs.rst
> @@ -1044,11 +1044,14 @@ page allocation for significant performance gains. To minimize code complexity,
>  this support is currently excluded from the write path, which requires handling
>  complex optimizations such as compression and block allocation modes.
>  
> -This optional feature is triggered only when a file's immutable bit is set.
> -Consequently, F2FS will return EOPNOTSUPP if a user attempts to open a cached
> -file with write permissions, even immediately after clearing the bit. Write
> -access is only restored once the cached inode is dropped. The usage flow is
> -demonstrated below:
> +This optional feature is triggered by two mechanisms: the file's immutable bit
> +or a specific xattr flag. In both cases, F2FS ensures data integrity by
> +restricting the file to a read-only state while large folios are active.
> +
> +1. Immutable Bit Approach:
> +Triggered when the FS_IMMUTABLE_FL is set. This is a strict enforcement
> +where the file cannot be modified at all until the bit is cleared and
> +the cached inode is dropped.
>  
>  .. code-block::
>  
> @@ -1078,3 +1081,31 @@ demonstrated below:
>     Written 4096 bytes with pattern = zero, total_time = 29 us, max_latency = 28 us
>  
>     # rm /data/testfile_read_seq
> +
> +2. XATTR fadvise Approach:
> +A more flexible registration via extended attributes.
> +
> +.. code-block::
> +
> +    enum {
> +        F2FS_XATTR_FADV_LARGEFOLIO,
> +    };
> +    unsigned int value = BIT(F2FS_XATTR_FADV_LARGEFOLIO);
> +
> +    /* Registers the inode number for large folio support in the subsystem.*/
> +    # setxattr(file, "user.fadvise", &value, sizeof(unsigned int), 0)
> +
> +    /* The file must be made Read-Only to transition into the large folio path. */
> +    # fchmod(0400, fd)
> +
> +    /* clean up dirty inode state. */
> +    # fsync(fd)
> +
> +    /* Drop the inode cache.
> +    # close(fd)
> +
> +    /* f2fs_iget() instantiates the inode with large folio support.*/
> +    # open()
> +
> +    /* Returns -EOPNOTSUPP or error to protect the large folio cache.*/
> +    # open(WRITE), mkwrite on mmap, or chmod(WRITE)
> diff --git a/fs/f2fs/checkpoint.c b/fs/f2fs/checkpoint.c
> index 01e1ba77263e..fdd62ddc3ed6 100644
> --- a/fs/f2fs/checkpoint.c
> +++ b/fs/f2fs/checkpoint.c
> @@ -778,7 +778,7 @@ void f2fs_remove_ino_entry(struct f2fs_sb_info *sbi, nid_t ino, int type)
>  	__remove_ino_entry(sbi, ino, type);
>  }
>  
> -/* mode should be APPEND_INO, UPDATE_INO or TRANS_DIR_INO */
> +/* mode should be APPEND_INO, UPDATE_INO, LARGE_FOLIO_IO, or TRANS_DIR_INO */
>  bool f2fs_exist_written_data(struct f2fs_sb_info *sbi, nid_t ino, int mode)
>  {
>  	struct inode_management *im = &sbi->im[mode];
> diff --git a/fs/f2fs/data.c b/fs/f2fs/data.c
> index 965d4e6443c6..5e46230398d7 100644
> --- a/fs/f2fs/data.c
> +++ b/fs/f2fs/data.c
> @@ -2494,7 +2494,7 @@ static int f2fs_read_data_large_folio(struct inode *inode,
>  	int ret = 0;
>  	bool folio_in_bio;
>  
> -	if (!IS_IMMUTABLE(inode) || f2fs_compressed_file(inode)) {
> +	if (f2fs_compressed_file(inode)) {
>  		if (folio)
>  			folio_unlock(folio);
>  		return -EOPNOTSUPP;
> diff --git a/fs/f2fs/f2fs.h b/fs/f2fs/f2fs.h
> index e40b6b2784ee..02bc6eb96a59 100644
> --- a/fs/f2fs/f2fs.h
> +++ b/fs/f2fs/f2fs.h
> @@ -381,6 +381,7 @@ enum {
>  /* for the list of ino */
>  enum {
>  	ORPHAN_INO,		/* for orphan ino list */
> +	LARGE_FOLIO_INO,	/* for large folio case */
>  	APPEND_INO,		/* for append ino list */
>  	UPDATE_INO,		/* for update ino list */
>  	TRANS_DIR_INO,		/* for transactions dir ino list */
> diff --git a/fs/f2fs/file.c b/fs/f2fs/file.c
> index c0220cd7b332..64ba900410fc 100644
> --- a/fs/f2fs/file.c
> +++ b/fs/f2fs/file.c
> @@ -2068,9 +2068,16 @@ static long f2fs_fallocate(struct file *file, int mode,
>  
>  static int f2fs_release_file(struct inode *inode, struct file *filp)
>  {
> -	if (atomic_dec_and_test(&F2FS_I(inode)->open_count))
> +	if (atomic_dec_and_test(&F2FS_I(inode)->open_count)) {
>  		f2fs_remove_donate_inode(inode);
> -
> +		/*
> +		 * In order to get large folio as soon as possible, let's drop
> +		 * inode cache asap. See also f2fs_drop_inode.
> +		 */
> +		if (f2fs_exist_written_data(F2FS_I_SB(inode),
> +					    inode->i_ino, LARGE_FOLIO_INO))
> +                       d_drop(filp->f_path.dentry);
> +	}
>  	/*
>  	 * f2fs_release_file is called at every close calls. So we should
>  	 * not drop any inmemory pages by close called by other process.
> diff --git a/fs/f2fs/inode.c b/fs/f2fs/inode.c
> index 89240be8cc59..e100bc5a378c 100644
> --- a/fs/f2fs/inode.c
> +++ b/fs/f2fs/inode.c
> @@ -565,6 +565,20 @@ static bool is_meta_ino(struct f2fs_sb_info *sbi, unsigned int ino)
>  		ino == F2FS_COMPRESS_INO(sbi);
>  }
>  
> +static void f2fs_mapping_set_large_folio(struct inode *inode)
> +{
> +	struct f2fs_sb_info *sbi = F2FS_I_SB(inode);
> +
> +	if (f2fs_compressed_file(inode))
> +		return;
> +	if (f2fs_quota_file(sbi, inode->i_ino))
> +		return;
> +	if (IS_IMMUTABLE(inode) ||
> +	    (f2fs_exist_written_data(sbi, inode->i_ino, LARGE_FOLIO_INO) &&
> +	     !(inode->i_mode & S_IWUGO)))
> +	    mapping_set_folio_min_order(inode->i_mapping, 0);
> +}
> +
>  struct inode *f2fs_iget(struct super_block *sb, unsigned long ino)
>  {
>  	struct f2fs_sb_info *sbi = F2FS_SB(sb);
> @@ -620,9 +634,7 @@ struct inode *f2fs_iget(struct super_block *sb, unsigned long ino)
>  		inode->i_op = &f2fs_file_inode_operations;
>  		inode->i_fop = &f2fs_file_operations;
>  		inode->i_mapping->a_ops = &f2fs_dblock_aops;
> -		if (IS_IMMUTABLE(inode) && !f2fs_compressed_file(inode) &&
> -		    !f2fs_quota_file(sbi, inode->i_ino))
> -			mapping_set_folio_min_order(inode->i_mapping, 0);
> +		f2fs_mapping_set_large_folio(inode);
>  	} else if (S_ISDIR(inode->i_mode)) {
>  		inode->i_op = &f2fs_dir_inode_operations;
>  		inode->i_fop = &f2fs_dir_operations;
> @@ -895,6 +907,7 @@ void f2fs_evict_inode(struct inode *inode)
>  	f2fs_remove_ino_entry(sbi, inode->i_ino, APPEND_INO);
>  	f2fs_remove_ino_entry(sbi, inode->i_ino, UPDATE_INO);
>  	f2fs_remove_ino_entry(sbi, inode->i_ino, FLUSH_INO);
> +	f2fs_remove_ino_entry(sbi, inode->i_ino, LARGE_FOLIO_INO);
>  
>  	if (!is_sbi_flag_set(sbi, SBI_IS_FREEZING)) {
>  		sb_start_intwrite(inode->i_sb);
> diff --git a/fs/f2fs/super.c b/fs/f2fs/super.c
> index ccf806b676f5..11d1e0c99ac1 100644
> --- a/fs/f2fs/super.c
> +++ b/fs/f2fs/super.c
> @@ -1844,6 +1844,13 @@ static int f2fs_drop_inode(struct inode *inode)
>  			return 1;
>  		}
>  	}
> +	/*
> +	 * In order to get large folio as soon as possible, let's drop
> +	 * inode cache asap. See also f2fs_release_file.
> +	 */
> +	if (f2fs_exist_written_data(sbi, inode->i_ino, LARGE_FOLIO_INO) &&
> +	    !is_inode_flag_set(inode, FI_DIRTY_INODE))
> +		return 1;
>  
>  	/*
>  	 * This is to avoid a deadlock condition like below.
> diff --git a/fs/f2fs/xattr.c b/fs/f2fs/xattr.c
> index 941dc62a6d6f..0c0e44c2dcdd 100644
> --- a/fs/f2fs/xattr.c
> +++ b/fs/f2fs/xattr.c
> @@ -44,6 +44,16 @@ static void xattr_free(struct f2fs_sb_info *sbi, void *xattr_addr,
>  		kfree(xattr_addr);
>  }
>  
> +static int f2fs_xattr_fadvise_get(struct inode *inode, void *buffer)
> +{
> +	if (!buffer)
> +		goto out;
> +	if (mapping_large_folio_support(inode->i_mapping))
> +		*((unsigned int *)buffer) |= BIT(F2FS_XATTR_FADV_LARGEFOLIO);
> +out:
> +	return sizeof(unsigned int);
> +}
> +
>  static int f2fs_xattr_generic_get(const struct xattr_handler *handler,
>  		struct dentry *unused, struct inode *inode,
>  		const char *name, void *buffer, size_t size)
> @@ -61,10 +71,29 @@ static int f2fs_xattr_generic_get(const struct xattr_handler *handler,
>  	default:
>  		return -EINVAL;
>  	}
> +	if (handler->flags == F2FS_XATTR_INDEX_USER &&
> +	    !strcmp(name, "fadvise"))
> +		return f2fs_xattr_fadvise_get(inode, buffer);
> +
>  	return f2fs_getxattr(inode, handler->flags, name,
>  			     buffer, size, NULL);
>  }
>  
> +static int f2fs_xattr_fadvise_set(struct inode *inode, const void *value)
> +{
> +	unsigned int new_fadvise;
> +
> +	new_fadvise = *(unsigned int *)value;
> +
> +	if (new_fadvise & BIT(F2FS_XATTR_FADV_LARGEFOLIO))
> +		f2fs_add_ino_entry(F2FS_I_SB(inode),
> +				inode->i_ino, LARGE_FOLIO_INO);
> +	else
> +		f2fs_remove_ino_entry(F2FS_I_SB(inode),
> +				inode->i_ino, LARGE_FOLIO_INO);
> +	return 0;
> +}
> +
>  static int f2fs_xattr_generic_set(const struct xattr_handler *handler,
>  		struct mnt_idmap *idmap,
>  		struct dentry *unused, struct inode *inode,
> @@ -84,6 +113,10 @@ static int f2fs_xattr_generic_set(const struct xattr_handler *handler,
>  	default:
>  		return -EINVAL;
>  	}
> +	if (handler->flags == F2FS_XATTR_INDEX_USER &&
> +	    !strcmp(name, "fadvise"))
> +		return f2fs_xattr_fadvise_set(inode, value);
> +
>  	return f2fs_setxattr(inode, handler->flags, name,
>  					value, size, NULL, flags);
>  }
> @@ -842,4 +875,4 @@ int __init f2fs_init_xattr_cache(void)
>  void f2fs_destroy_xattr_cache(void)
>  {
>  	kmem_cache_destroy(inline_xattr_slab);
> -}
> \ No newline at end of file
> +}
> diff --git a/fs/f2fs/xattr.h b/fs/f2fs/xattr.h
> index bce3d93e4755..455f460d014e 100644
> --- a/fs/f2fs/xattr.h
> +++ b/fs/f2fs/xattr.h
> @@ -24,6 +24,7 @@
>  #define F2FS_XATTR_REFCOUNT_MAX         1024
>  
>  /* Name indexes */
> +#define F2FS_USER_FADVISE_NAME			"user.fadvise"
>  #define F2FS_SYSTEM_ADVISE_NAME			"system.advise"
>  #define F2FS_XATTR_INDEX_USER			1
>  #define F2FS_XATTR_INDEX_POSIX_ACL_ACCESS	2
> @@ -39,6 +40,11 @@
>  #define F2FS_XATTR_NAME_ENCRYPTION_CONTEXT	"c"
>  #define F2FS_XATTR_NAME_VERITY			"v"
>  
> +/* used for F2FS_USER_FADVISE_NAME */
> +enum {
> +	F2FS_XATTR_FADV_LARGEFOLIO,
> +};
> +
>  struct f2fs_xattr_header {
>  	__le32  h_magic;        /* magic number for identification */
>  	__le32  h_refcount;     /* reference count */
> -- 
> 2.53.0.1213.gd9a14994de-goog
> 
> 
---end quoted text---

Re: [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Jaegeuk Kim]

On 04/14, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> Please add the relevant mailing lists when adding new user interfaces.
> 
> And I'm not sure hacks working around the proper large folio
> implementation are something that should be merged upstream.

Cc'ed linux-api and linux-fsdevel onto the patch thread with a proposal that
I'm not sure it's acceptable or not. 

> 
> On Fri, Apr 10, 2026 at 01:16:23AM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> > enum {
> >        F2FS_XATTR_FADV_LARGEFOLIO,
> > };
> > 
> > unsigned int value = BIT(F2FS_XATTR_FADV_LARGEFOLIO);
> > 
> > 1. setxattr(file, "user.fadvise", &value, sizeof(unsigned int), 0)
> >  -> register the inode number for large folio
> > 2. chmod(0400, file)
> >  -> make Read-Only
> > 3. fsync() && close() && open(READ)
> >  -> f2fs_iget() with large folio
> > 4. open(WRITE), mkwrite on mmap, chmod(WRITE)
> >  -> return error
> > 5. close() and open()
> >  -> goto #3
> > 6. unlink
> >  -> deregister the inode number
> > 
> > Suggested-by: Akilesh Kailash <akailash@google.com>
> > Signed-off-by: Jaegeuk Kim <jaegeuk@kernel.org>
> > ---
> >  
> >   Log from v1:
> >    - add a condition in f2fs_drop_inode
> >    - add Doc
> > 
> >  Documentation/filesystems/f2fs.rst | 41 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++----
> >  fs/f2fs/checkpoint.c               |  2 +-
> >  fs/f2fs/data.c                     |  2 +-
> >  fs/f2fs/f2fs.h                     |  1 +
> >  fs/f2fs/file.c                     | 11 ++++++--
> >  fs/f2fs/inode.c                    | 19 +++++++++++---
> >  fs/f2fs/super.c                    |  7 +++++
> >  fs/f2fs/xattr.c                    | 35 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-
> >  fs/f2fs/xattr.h                    |  6 +++++
> >  9 files changed, 111 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-)
> > 
> > diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/f2fs.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/f2fs.rst
> > index 7e4031631286..de899d0d3088 100644
> > --- a/Documentation/filesystems/f2fs.rst
> > +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/f2fs.rst
> > @@ -1044,11 +1044,14 @@ page allocation for significant performance gains. To minimize code complexity,
> >  this support is currently excluded from the write path, which requires handling
> >  complex optimizations such as compression and block allocation modes.
> >  
> > -This optional feature is triggered only when a file's immutable bit is set.
> > -Consequently, F2FS will return EOPNOTSUPP if a user attempts to open a cached
> > -file with write permissions, even immediately after clearing the bit. Write
> > -access is only restored once the cached inode is dropped. The usage flow is
> > -demonstrated below:
> > +This optional feature is triggered by two mechanisms: the file's immutable bit
> > +or a specific xattr flag. In both cases, F2FS ensures data integrity by
> > +restricting the file to a read-only state while large folios are active.
> > +
> > +1. Immutable Bit Approach:
> > +Triggered when the FS_IMMUTABLE_FL is set. This is a strict enforcement
> > +where the file cannot be modified at all until the bit is cleared and
> > +the cached inode is dropped.
> >  
> >  .. code-block::
> >  
> > @@ -1078,3 +1081,31 @@ demonstrated below:
> >     Written 4096 bytes with pattern = zero, total_time = 29 us, max_latency = 28 us
> >  
> >     # rm /data/testfile_read_seq
> > +
> > +2. XATTR fadvise Approach:
> > +A more flexible registration via extended attributes.
> > +
> > +.. code-block::
> > +
> > +    enum {
> > +        F2FS_XATTR_FADV_LARGEFOLIO,
> > +    };
> > +    unsigned int value = BIT(F2FS_XATTR_FADV_LARGEFOLIO);
> > +
> > +    /* Registers the inode number for large folio support in the subsystem.*/
> > +    # setxattr(file, "user.fadvise", &value, sizeof(unsigned int), 0)
> > +
> > +    /* The file must be made Read-Only to transition into the large folio path. */
> > +    # fchmod(0400, fd)
> > +
> > +    /* clean up dirty inode state. */
> > +    # fsync(fd)
> > +
> > +    /* Drop the inode cache.
> > +    # close(fd)
> > +
> > +    /* f2fs_iget() instantiates the inode with large folio support.*/
> > +    # open()
> > +
> > +    /* Returns -EOPNOTSUPP or error to protect the large folio cache.*/
> > +    # open(WRITE), mkwrite on mmap, or chmod(WRITE)
> > diff --git a/fs/f2fs/checkpoint.c b/fs/f2fs/checkpoint.c
> > index 01e1ba77263e..fdd62ddc3ed6 100644
> > --- a/fs/f2fs/checkpoint.c
> > +++ b/fs/f2fs/checkpoint.c
> > @@ -778,7 +778,7 @@ void f2fs_remove_ino_entry(struct f2fs_sb_info *sbi, nid_t ino, int type)
> >  	__remove_ino_entry(sbi, ino, type);
> >  }
> >  
> > -/* mode should be APPEND_INO, UPDATE_INO or TRANS_DIR_INO */
> > +/* mode should be APPEND_INO, UPDATE_INO, LARGE_FOLIO_IO, or TRANS_DIR_INO */
> >  bool f2fs_exist_written_data(struct f2fs_sb_info *sbi, nid_t ino, int mode)
> >  {
> >  	struct inode_management *im = &sbi->im[mode];
> > diff --git a/fs/f2fs/data.c b/fs/f2fs/data.c
> > index 965d4e6443c6..5e46230398d7 100644
> > --- a/fs/f2fs/data.c
> > +++ b/fs/f2fs/data.c
> > @@ -2494,7 +2494,7 @@ static int f2fs_read_data_large_folio(struct inode *inode,
> >  	int ret = 0;
> >  	bool folio_in_bio;
> >  
> > -	if (!IS_IMMUTABLE(inode) || f2fs_compressed_file(inode)) {
> > +	if (f2fs_compressed_file(inode)) {
> >  		if (folio)
> >  			folio_unlock(folio);
> >  		return -EOPNOTSUPP;
> > diff --git a/fs/f2fs/f2fs.h b/fs/f2fs/f2fs.h
> > index e40b6b2784ee..02bc6eb96a59 100644
> > --- a/fs/f2fs/f2fs.h
> > +++ b/fs/f2fs/f2fs.h
> > @@ -381,6 +381,7 @@ enum {
> >  /* for the list of ino */
> >  enum {
> >  	ORPHAN_INO,		/* for orphan ino list */
> > +	LARGE_FOLIO_INO,	/* for large folio case */
> >  	APPEND_INO,		/* for append ino list */
> >  	UPDATE_INO,		/* for update ino list */
> >  	TRANS_DIR_INO,		/* for transactions dir ino list */
> > diff --git a/fs/f2fs/file.c b/fs/f2fs/file.c
> > index c0220cd7b332..64ba900410fc 100644
> > --- a/fs/f2fs/file.c
> > +++ b/fs/f2fs/file.c
> > @@ -2068,9 +2068,16 @@ static long f2fs_fallocate(struct file *file, int mode,
> >  
> >  static int f2fs_release_file(struct inode *inode, struct file *filp)
> >  {
> > -	if (atomic_dec_and_test(&F2FS_I(inode)->open_count))
> > +	if (atomic_dec_and_test(&F2FS_I(inode)->open_count)) {
> >  		f2fs_remove_donate_inode(inode);
> > -
> > +		/*
> > +		 * In order to get large folio as soon as possible, let's drop
> > +		 * inode cache asap. See also f2fs_drop_inode.
> > +		 */
> > +		if (f2fs_exist_written_data(F2FS_I_SB(inode),
> > +					    inode->i_ino, LARGE_FOLIO_INO))
> > +                       d_drop(filp->f_path.dentry);
> > +	}
> >  	/*
> >  	 * f2fs_release_file is called at every close calls. So we should
> >  	 * not drop any inmemory pages by close called by other process.
> > diff --git a/fs/f2fs/inode.c b/fs/f2fs/inode.c
> > index 89240be8cc59..e100bc5a378c 100644
> > --- a/fs/f2fs/inode.c
> > +++ b/fs/f2fs/inode.c
> > @@ -565,6 +565,20 @@ static bool is_meta_ino(struct f2fs_sb_info *sbi, unsigned int ino)
> >  		ino == F2FS_COMPRESS_INO(sbi);
> >  }
> >  
> > +static void f2fs_mapping_set_large_folio(struct inode *inode)
> > +{
> > +	struct f2fs_sb_info *sbi = F2FS_I_SB(inode);
> > +
> > +	if (f2fs_compressed_file(inode))
> > +		return;
> > +	if (f2fs_quota_file(sbi, inode->i_ino))
> > +		return;
> > +	if (IS_IMMUTABLE(inode) ||
> > +	    (f2fs_exist_written_data(sbi, inode->i_ino, LARGE_FOLIO_INO) &&
> > +	     !(inode->i_mode & S_IWUGO)))
> > +	    mapping_set_folio_min_order(inode->i_mapping, 0);
> > +}
> > +
> >  struct inode *f2fs_iget(struct super_block *sb, unsigned long ino)
> >  {
> >  	struct f2fs_sb_info *sbi = F2FS_SB(sb);
> > @@ -620,9 +634,7 @@ struct inode *f2fs_iget(struct super_block *sb, unsigned long ino)
> >  		inode->i_op = &f2fs_file_inode_operations;
> >  		inode->i_fop = &f2fs_file_operations;
> >  		inode->i_mapping->a_ops = &f2fs_dblock_aops;
> > -		if (IS_IMMUTABLE(inode) && !f2fs_compressed_file(inode) &&
> > -		    !f2fs_quota_file(sbi, inode->i_ino))
> > -			mapping_set_folio_min_order(inode->i_mapping, 0);
> > +		f2fs_mapping_set_large_folio(inode);
> >  	} else if (S_ISDIR(inode->i_mode)) {
> >  		inode->i_op = &f2fs_dir_inode_operations;
> >  		inode->i_fop = &f2fs_dir_operations;
> > @@ -895,6 +907,7 @@ void f2fs_evict_inode(struct inode *inode)
> >  	f2fs_remove_ino_entry(sbi, inode->i_ino, APPEND_INO);
> >  	f2fs_remove_ino_entry(sbi, inode->i_ino, UPDATE_INO);
> >  	f2fs_remove_ino_entry(sbi, inode->i_ino, FLUSH_INO);
> > +	f2fs_remove_ino_entry(sbi, inode->i_ino, LARGE_FOLIO_INO);
> >  
> >  	if (!is_sbi_flag_set(sbi, SBI_IS_FREEZING)) {
> >  		sb_start_intwrite(inode->i_sb);
> > diff --git a/fs/f2fs/super.c b/fs/f2fs/super.c
> > index ccf806b676f5..11d1e0c99ac1 100644
> > --- a/fs/f2fs/super.c
> > +++ b/fs/f2fs/super.c
> > @@ -1844,6 +1844,13 @@ static int f2fs_drop_inode(struct inode *inode)
> >  			return 1;
> >  		}
> >  	}
> > +	/*
> > +	 * In order to get large folio as soon as possible, let's drop
> > +	 * inode cache asap. See also f2fs_release_file.
> > +	 */
> > +	if (f2fs_exist_written_data(sbi, inode->i_ino, LARGE_FOLIO_INO) &&
> > +	    !is_inode_flag_set(inode, FI_DIRTY_INODE))
> > +		return 1;
> >  
> >  	/*
> >  	 * This is to avoid a deadlock condition like below.
> > diff --git a/fs/f2fs/xattr.c b/fs/f2fs/xattr.c
> > index 941dc62a6d6f..0c0e44c2dcdd 100644
> > --- a/fs/f2fs/xattr.c
> > +++ b/fs/f2fs/xattr.c
> > @@ -44,6 +44,16 @@ static void xattr_free(struct f2fs_sb_info *sbi, void *xattr_addr,
> >  		kfree(xattr_addr);
> >  }
> >  
> > +static int f2fs_xattr_fadvise_get(struct inode *inode, void *buffer)
> > +{
> > +	if (!buffer)
> > +		goto out;
> > +	if (mapping_large_folio_support(inode->i_mapping))
> > +		*((unsigned int *)buffer) |= BIT(F2FS_XATTR_FADV_LARGEFOLIO);
> > +out:
> > +	return sizeof(unsigned int);
> > +}
> > +
> >  static int f2fs_xattr_generic_get(const struct xattr_handler *handler,
> >  		struct dentry *unused, struct inode *inode,
> >  		const char *name, void *buffer, size_t size)
> > @@ -61,10 +71,29 @@ static int f2fs_xattr_generic_get(const struct xattr_handler *handler,
> >  	default:
> >  		return -EINVAL;
> >  	}
> > +	if (handler->flags == F2FS_XATTR_INDEX_USER &&
> > +	    !strcmp(name, "fadvise"))
> > +		return f2fs_xattr_fadvise_get(inode, buffer);
> > +
> >  	return f2fs_getxattr(inode, handler->flags, name,
> >  			     buffer, size, NULL);
> >  }
> >  
> > +static int f2fs_xattr_fadvise_set(struct inode *inode, const void *value)
> > +{
> > +	unsigned int new_fadvise;
> > +
> > +	new_fadvise = *(unsigned int *)value;
> > +
> > +	if (new_fadvise & BIT(F2FS_XATTR_FADV_LARGEFOLIO))
> > +		f2fs_add_ino_entry(F2FS_I_SB(inode),
> > +				inode->i_ino, LARGE_FOLIO_INO);
> > +	else
> > +		f2fs_remove_ino_entry(F2FS_I_SB(inode),
> > +				inode->i_ino, LARGE_FOLIO_INO);
> > +	return 0;
> > +}
> > +
> >  static int f2fs_xattr_generic_set(const struct xattr_handler *handler,
> >  		struct mnt_idmap *idmap,
> >  		struct dentry *unused, struct inode *inode,
> > @@ -84,6 +113,10 @@ static int f2fs_xattr_generic_set(const struct xattr_handler *handler,
> >  	default:
> >  		return -EINVAL;
> >  	}
> > +	if (handler->flags == F2FS_XATTR_INDEX_USER &&
> > +	    !strcmp(name, "fadvise"))
> > +		return f2fs_xattr_fadvise_set(inode, value);
> > +
> >  	return f2fs_setxattr(inode, handler->flags, name,
> >  					value, size, NULL, flags);
> >  }
> > @@ -842,4 +875,4 @@ int __init f2fs_init_xattr_cache(void)
> >  void f2fs_destroy_xattr_cache(void)
> >  {
> >  	kmem_cache_destroy(inline_xattr_slab);
> > -}
> > \ No newline at end of file
> > +}
> > diff --git a/fs/f2fs/xattr.h b/fs/f2fs/xattr.h
> > index bce3d93e4755..455f460d014e 100644
> > --- a/fs/f2fs/xattr.h
> > +++ b/fs/f2fs/xattr.h
> > @@ -24,6 +24,7 @@
> >  #define F2FS_XATTR_REFCOUNT_MAX         1024
> >  
> >  /* Name indexes */
> > +#define F2FS_USER_FADVISE_NAME			"user.fadvise"
> >  #define F2FS_SYSTEM_ADVISE_NAME			"system.advise"
> >  #define F2FS_XATTR_INDEX_USER			1
> >  #define F2FS_XATTR_INDEX_POSIX_ACL_ACCESS	2
> > @@ -39,6 +40,11 @@
> >  #define F2FS_XATTR_NAME_ENCRYPTION_CONTEXT	"c"
> >  #define F2FS_XATTR_NAME_VERITY			"v"
> >  
> > +/* used for F2FS_USER_FADVISE_NAME */
> > +enum {
> > +	F2FS_XATTR_FADV_LARGEFOLIO,
> > +};
> > +
> >  struct f2fs_xattr_header {
> >  	__le32  h_magic;        /* magic number for identification */
> >  	__le32  h_refcount;     /* reference count */
> > -- 
> > 2.53.0.1213.gd9a14994de-goog
> > 
> > 
> ---end quoted text---

Re: [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 04:44:04PM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> On 04/14, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > Please add the relevant mailing lists when adding new user interfaces.
> > 
> > And I'm not sure hacks working around the proper large folio
> > implementation are something that should be merged upstream.
> 
> Cc'ed linux-api and linux-fsdevel onto the patch thread with a proposal that
> I'm not sure it's acceptable or not. 

You haven't sent a proposal.  This is a reply to a reply to a reply of a
patch.  There's no justification for why f2fs is so special that it
needs this.  What the hell is going on?  You know this is not the way to
get code merged into Linux.

Re: [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Jaegeuk Kim]

On 04/15, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 04:44:04PM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> > On 04/14, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > > Please add the relevant mailing lists when adding new user interfaces.
> > > 
> > > And I'm not sure hacks working around the proper large folio
> > > implementation are something that should be merged upstream.
> > 
> > Cc'ed linux-api and linux-fsdevel onto the patch thread with a proposal that
> > I'm not sure it's acceptable or not. 
> 
> You haven't sent a proposal.  This is a reply to a reply to a reply of a
> patch.  There's no justification for why f2fs is so special that it
> needs this.  What the hell is going on?  You know this is not the way to
> get code merged into Linux.

I added two ideas in that email. Have you even tried to understand?

Re: [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Darrick J. Wong]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 10:02:26PM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> On 04/15, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 04:44:04PM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> > > On 04/14, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > > > Please add the relevant mailing lists when adding new user interfaces.
> > > > 
> > > > And I'm not sure hacks working around the proper large folio
> > > > implementation are something that should be merged upstream.
> > > 
> > > Cc'ed linux-api and linux-fsdevel onto the patch thread with a proposal that
> > > I'm not sure it's acceptable or not. 
> > 
> > You haven't sent a proposal.  This is a reply to a reply to a reply of a
> > patch.  There's no justification for why f2fs is so special that it
> > needs this.  What the hell is going on?  You know this is not the way to
> > get code merged into Linux.
> 
> I added two ideas in that email. Have you even tried to understand?

You want to establish "user.fadvise" as an extended attribute containing
a bitmask.  The sole bit defined in that attribute means "use large
folios", but you also have to change the file mode and set the IMMUTABLE
bit for it to actually do anything.

Meanwhile, you can't actually persist any of the fadvise(2) advice
flags, so the xattr name doesn't even make sense.  Maybe you meant to
call it "user.madvise" since the closest thing I can think of is
MADV_HUGEPAGE?

I've understood enough.  YUCK.

--D

Re: [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Jaegeuk Kim]

On 04/15, Darrick J. Wong wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 10:02:26PM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> > On 04/15, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > > On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 04:44:04PM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> > > > On 04/14, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > > > > Please add the relevant mailing lists when adding new user interfaces.
> > > > > 
> > > > > And I'm not sure hacks working around the proper large folio
> > > > > implementation are something that should be merged upstream.
> > > > 
> > > > Cc'ed linux-api and linux-fsdevel onto the patch thread with a proposal that
> > > > I'm not sure it's acceptable or not. 
> > > 
> > > You haven't sent a proposal.  This is a reply to a reply to a reply of a
> > > patch.  There's no justification for why f2fs is so special that it
> > > needs this.  What the hell is going on?  You know this is not the way to
> > > get code merged into Linux.
> > 
> > I added two ideas in that email. Have you even tried to understand?
> 
> You want to establish "user.fadvise" as an extended attribute containing
> a bitmask.  The sole bit defined in that attribute means "use large
> folios", but you also have to change the file mode and set the IMMUTABLE
> bit for it to actually do anything.

Partly yes. This path has nothing to do with IMMUTABLE bit, since I used to
activate the large folio with that bit, but hit a big pain which requires
clearing the bit whenever just deleting the file.

So, this gives a new way to activate the large folio by chmod(0400) and
setxattr("user.fadvise") only while providing quick inode eviction in order
to set mapping by iget, and allowing file deletion easily.

I feel the arguable points would be 1) the path to evict inode by calling
d_drop in release_file and returning 1 in drop_inode, 2) how to give the
hint between fadvise(FADV_LARGE_FOLIO) or setxattr(user.fadvise) by individual
file system.

> 
> Meanwhile, you can't actually persist any of the fadvise(2) advice
> flags, so the xattr name doesn't even make sense.  Maybe you meant to
> call it "user.madvise" since the closest thing I can think of is
> MADV_HUGEPAGE?
> 
> I've understood enough.  YUCK.

Thank you for taking the time to take a look.

> 
> --D

Re: [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Christoph Hellwig]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 06:15:46PM +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 04:44:04PM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> > On 04/14, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > > Please add the relevant mailing lists when adding new user interfaces.
> > > 
> > > And I'm not sure hacks working around the proper large folio
> > > implementation are something that should be merged upstream.
> > 
> > Cc'ed linux-api and linux-fsdevel onto the patch thread with a proposal that
> > I'm not sure it's acceptable or not. 
> 
> You haven't sent a proposal.  This is a reply to a reply to a reply of a
> patch.  There's no justification for why f2fs is so special that it
> needs this.  What the hell is going on?  You know this is not the way to
> get code merged into Linux.

None of this got properly answers, and this broken interface now landed
in linux-next. IT is offloading a user.* xattr which is free-form
user data with semantics that are weird to say it very nicely.

All this was done against the advice in the mailing list discussion.

I think at some point we just need to stop taking f2fs updates likes
this.

Re: [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Theodore Tso]

On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 01:51:08AM -0700, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > You haven't sent a proposal.  This is a reply to a reply to a reply of a
> > patch.  There's no justification for why f2fs is so special that it
> > needs this.  What the hell is going on?  You know this is not the way to
> > get code merged into Linux.
> 
> None of this got properly answers, and this broken interface now landed
> in linux-next. IT is offloading a user.* xattr which is free-form
> user data with semantics that are weird to say it very nicely.
> 
> All this was done against the advice in the mailing list discussion.

So let me get this straight.  This is a magic xattr interface which is
not even persisted in the file system, but instead sets a 32-bit
bitmask in the struct inode which disappears once the inode gets
flushed from the inode stack.  And it uses a generic xattr name,
"user.fadvise".

There's no way in *hell* any other file system is likely to adopt such
a broken interface, so why didn't you just use an ioctl to set this
magic f2fs-specific flag?

> I think at some point we just need to stop taking f2fs updates likes
> this.

Well, that's ultiamtely up to Linus.  I'll say that if I were Linus
(and I'm glad I'm not :-), and I saw this in a pull request, I'd
reject it out of hand.  But whether it's worth making a huge fuss and
asking escalating this mess to Linus, we probably should get a bit
more community consensus before taking such a drastic step.

Christian, since you're one of the VFS maintaienrs, what's your
opinion about escalating this to Linus?

					- Ted

Re: [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 11:57:48AM -0400, Theodore Tso wrote:
> So let me get this straight.  This is a magic xattr interface which is
> not even persisted in the file system, but instead sets a 32-bit
> bitmask in the struct inode which disappears once the inode gets
> flushed from the inode stack.  And it uses a generic xattr name,
> "user.fadvise".
> 
> There's no way in *hell* any other file system is likely to adopt such
> a broken interface, so why didn't you just use an ioctl to set this
> magic f2fs-specific flag?

I mean, yes, this API is horrendous.  But it's just another example of
f2fs thinking it's somehow special and not just enabling large folios
like other filesystems do.  This hurts everyone, not just people who use
f2fs.

Re: [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Jaegeuk Kim]

On 05/21, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 11:57:48AM -0400, Theodore Tso wrote:
> > So let me get this straight.  This is a magic xattr interface which is
> > not even persisted in the file system, but instead sets a 32-bit
> > bitmask in the struct inode which disappears once the inode gets
> > flushed from the inode stack.  And it uses a generic xattr name,
> > "user.fadvise".
> > 
> > There's no way in *hell* any other file system is likely to adopt such
> > a broken interface, so why didn't you just use an ioctl to set this
> > magic f2fs-specific flag?
> 
> I mean, yes, this API is horrendous.  But it's just another example of
> f2fs thinking it's somehow special and not just enabling large folios
> like other filesystems do.  This hurts everyone, not just people who use
> f2fs.

From the production viewpoint, I raised a concern on setting large folio by
default, since that exhausts lots of high-order pages, which were needed for
essential system services and critical apps.

Re: [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Fri, May 22, 2026 at 03:59:45AM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> On 05/21, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 11:57:48AM -0400, Theodore Tso wrote:
> > > So let me get this straight.  This is a magic xattr interface which is
> > > not even persisted in the file system, but instead sets a 32-bit
> > > bitmask in the struct inode which disappears once the inode gets
> > > flushed from the inode stack.  And it uses a generic xattr name,
> > > "user.fadvise".
> > > 
> > > There's no way in *hell* any other file system is likely to adopt such
> > > a broken interface, so why didn't you just use an ioctl to set this
> > > magic f2fs-specific flag?
> > 
> > I mean, yes, this API is horrendous.  But it's just another example of
> > f2fs thinking it's somehow special and not just enabling large folios
> > like other filesystems do.  This hurts everyone, not just people who use
> > f2fs.
> 
> >From the production viewpoint, I raised a concern on setting large folio by
> default, since that exhausts lots of high-order pages, which were needed for
> essential system services and critical apps.

Random fears or actual data?

Re: [f2fs-dev] [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Jaegeuk Kim]

On 05/22, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> On Fri, May 22, 2026 at 03:59:45AM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> > On 05/21, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > > On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 11:57:48AM -0400, Theodore Tso wrote:
> > > > So let me get this straight.  This is a magic xattr interface which is
> > > > not even persisted in the file system, but instead sets a 32-bit
> > > > bitmask in the struct inode which disappears once the inode gets
> > > > flushed from the inode stack.  And it uses a generic xattr name,
> > > > "user.fadvise".
> > > > 
> > > > There's no way in *hell* any other file system is likely to adopt such
> > > > a broken interface, so why didn't you just use an ioctl to set this
> > > > magic f2fs-specific flag?
> > > 
> > > I mean, yes, this API is horrendous.  But it's just another example of
> > > f2fs thinking it's somehow special and not just enabling large folios
> > > like other filesystems do.  This hurts everyone, not just people who use
> > > f2fs.
> > 
> > >From the production viewpoint, I raised a concern on setting large folio by
> > default, since that exhausts lots of high-order pages, which were needed for
> > essential system services and critical apps.
> 
> Random fears or actual data?

This was a quick buddyinfo right after booting the device.

Before:
Node 0, zone   Normal  22684  42284  28704  16901   9515   4566   1854    673    181     36    758

After disabling EROFS large folio:
Node 0, zone   Normal   8486   4732   2175   1161    697    272     82     19      3      1    856

> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Linux-f2fs-devel mailing list
> Linux-f2fs-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-f2fs-devel

Re: [f2fs-dev] [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Jaegeuk Kim]

On 05/21, Theodore Tso wrote:
> On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 01:51:08AM -0700, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > > You haven't sent a proposal.  This is a reply to a reply to a reply of a
> > > patch.  There's no justification for why f2fs is so special that it
> > > needs this.  What the hell is going on?  You know this is not the way to
> > > get code merged into Linux.
> > 
> > None of this got properly answers, and this broken interface now landed
> > in linux-next. IT is offloading a user.* xattr which is free-form
> > user data with semantics that are weird to say it very nicely.
> > 
> > All this was done against the advice in the mailing list discussion.
> 
> So let me get this straight.  This is a magic xattr interface which is
> not even persisted in the file system, but instead sets a 32-bit
> bitmask in the struct inode which disappears once the inode gets
> flushed from the inode stack.  And it uses a generic xattr name,
> "user.fadvise".
> 
> There's no way in *hell* any other file system is likely to adopt such
> a broken interface, so why didn't you just use an ioctl to set this
> magic f2fs-specific flag?

I went this route because Android heavily restricts ioctl() permissions
and we needed broader access for this to work within the framework. It’s
definitely a pragmatic choice just to get it running in production.

If ioctl() is a right way for upstream, I'm happy to change this patch. By
the way, I really don't understand why all the messages are so offensive,
even without trying to understand the problem or guiding right directions.

> 
> > I think at some point we just need to stop taking f2fs updates likes
> > this.
> 
> Well, that's ultiamtely up to Linus.  I'll say that if I were Linus
> (and I'm glad I'm not :-), and I saw this in a pull request, I'd
> reject it out of hand.  But whether it's worth making a huge fuss and
> asking escalating this mess to Linus, we probably should get a bit
> more community consensus before taking such a drastic step.

Could I also raise a quick concern regarding the phrasing/wording used
in the communications?

> 
> Christian, since you're one of the VFS maintaienrs, what's your
> opinion about escalating this to Linus?
> 
> 					- Ted
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Linux-f2fs-devel mailing list
> Linux-f2fs-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-f2fs-devel

Re: [f2fs-dev] [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Eric Biggers]

On Fri, May 22, 2026 at 03:32:39AM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> On 05/21, Theodore Tso wrote:
> > On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 01:51:08AM -0700, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > > > You haven't sent a proposal.  This is a reply to a reply to a reply of a
> > > > patch.  There's no justification for why f2fs is so special that it
> > > > needs this.  What the hell is going on?  You know this is not the way to
> > > > get code merged into Linux.
> > > 
> > > None of this got properly answers, and this broken interface now landed
> > > in linux-next. IT is offloading a user.* xattr which is free-form
> > > user data with semantics that are weird to say it very nicely.
> > > 
> > > All this was done against the advice in the mailing list discussion.
> > 
> > So let me get this straight.  This is a magic xattr interface which is
> > not even persisted in the file system, but instead sets a 32-bit
> > bitmask in the struct inode which disappears once the inode gets
> > flushed from the inode stack.  And it uses a generic xattr name,
> > "user.fadvise".
> > 
> > There's no way in *hell* any other file system is likely to adopt such
> > a broken interface, so why didn't you just use an ioctl to set this
> > magic f2fs-specific flag?
> 
> I went this route because Android heavily restricts ioctl() permissions
> and we needed broader access for this to work within the framework.

It's straightforward (2 lines I think) to update Android's SELinux
policy to allow an ioctl in all domains.  So that doesn't seem like a
reason to not use an ioctl.  In fact this is actually a reason *to* use
an ioctl, as it shows that ioctls can be allowed/denied independently as
needed, whereas xattrs just use the file write permission.

- Eric

Re: [f2fs-dev] [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Jaegeuk Kim]

On 05/21, Eric Biggers via Linux-f2fs-devel wrote:
> On Fri, May 22, 2026 at 03:32:39AM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> > On 05/21, Theodore Tso wrote:
> > > On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 01:51:08AM -0700, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > > > > You haven't sent a proposal.  This is a reply to a reply to a reply of a
> > > > > patch.  There's no justification for why f2fs is so special that it
> > > > > needs this.  What the hell is going on?  You know this is not the way to
> > > > > get code merged into Linux.
> > > > 
> > > > None of this got properly answers, and this broken interface now landed
> > > > in linux-next. IT is offloading a user.* xattr which is free-form
> > > > user data with semantics that are weird to say it very nicely.
> > > > 
> > > > All this was done against the advice in the mailing list discussion.
> > > 
> > > So let me get this straight.  This is a magic xattr interface which is
> > > not even persisted in the file system, but instead sets a 32-bit
> > > bitmask in the struct inode which disappears once the inode gets
> > > flushed from the inode stack.  And it uses a generic xattr name,
> > > "user.fadvise".
> > > 
> > > There's no way in *hell* any other file system is likely to adopt such
> > > a broken interface, so why didn't you just use an ioctl to set this
> > > magic f2fs-specific flag?
> > 
> > I went this route because Android heavily restricts ioctl() permissions
> > and we needed broader access for this to work within the framework.
> 
> It's straightforward (2 lines I think) to update Android's SELinux
> policy to allow an ioctl in all domains.  So that doesn't seem like a
> reason to not use an ioctl.  In fact this is actually a reason *to* use
> an ioctl, as it shows that ioctls can be allowed/denied independently as
> needed, whereas xattrs just use the file write permission.

Ok, that's also great news to me.

> 
> - Eric
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Linux-f2fs-devel mailing list
> Linux-f2fs-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-f2fs-devel

Re: [f2fs-dev] [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Christian Brauner]

On 2026-05-21 22:53 -0500, Eric Biggers wrote:
> On Fri, May 22, 2026 at 03:32:39AM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> > On 05/21, Theodore Tso wrote:
> > > On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 01:51:08AM -0700, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > > > > You haven't sent a proposal.  This is a reply to a reply to a reply of a
> > > > > patch.  There's no justification for why f2fs is so special that it
> > > > > needs this.  What the hell is going on?  You know this is not the way to
> > > > > get code merged into Linux.
> > > > 
> > > > None of this got properly answers, and this broken interface now landed
> > > > in linux-next. IT is offloading a user.* xattr which is free-form
> > > > user data with semantics that are weird to say it very nicely.
> > > > 
> > > > All this was done against the advice in the mailing list discussion.
> > > 
> > > So let me get this straight.  This is a magic xattr interface which is
> > > not even persisted in the file system, but instead sets a 32-bit
> > > bitmask in the struct inode which disappears once the inode gets
> > > flushed from the inode stack.  And it uses a generic xattr name,
> > > "user.fadvise".
> > > 
> > > There's no way in *hell* any other file system is likely to adopt such
> > > a broken interface, so why didn't you just use an ioctl to set this
> > > magic f2fs-specific flag?
> > 
> > I went this route because Android heavily restricts ioctl() permissions
> > and we needed broader access for this to work within the framework.
> 
> It's straightforward (2 lines I think) to update Android's SELinux
> policy to allow an ioctl in all domains.  So that doesn't seem like a
> reason to not use an ioctl.  In fact this is actually a reason *to* use
> an ioctl, as it shows that ioctls can be allowed/denied independently as
> needed, whereas xattrs just use the file write permission.

Thank you, I very much agree.

Re: [f2fs-dev] [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Theodore Tso]

On Fri, May 22, 2026 at 03:32:39AM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> I went this route because Android heavily restricts ioctl() permissions
> and we needed broader access for this to work within the framework. It’s
> definitely a pragmatic choice just to get it running in production.
> 
> If ioctl() is a right way for upstream, I'm happy to change this patch. By
> the way, I really don't understand why all the messages are so offensive,
> even without trying to understand the problem or guiding right directions.

The reason why some people were getting annoyed was because as a Linux
file system maintainer, there was an assumption that you would
understand that extended attributes --- especially in the user.*
namespace --- have an intended use case of storing a user-chosen small
piece of metadata that would be stored in the file system.

Hijacking user.fadvise such that it no longer persistent stores an
extended attribute for one specific file system --- such that if a
hypothetical user application might decide to store a piece of
application data in the extended attribute named "fadvise" would do
something completely different on a single mainline file system is in
such poor taste that I would have *hoped* that any Linux file system
maintainer would know that this a Really Bad Thing, such that if
someone in your development community suggested such an idea, you
would reject it.

And then, when people complained that it was a bad idea, and you
decided to put in the f2fs branch, such that it would show up in
linux-next, and there was no way for other file system developers to
object (short of appealing to Linus) --- well, that's basically you
taking advantage of your file system maintainer privileges.  And this
is why I started proposing whether we needed to appeal this to Linus
so he could make the call to reject something that the community had
already told you was in terrible, terrible taste.

As far as trying to understand why you were doing this --- I have to
turn that question around.  Why didn't *you* explain why you needed to
do this thing?  I went through the e-mail history, and I couldn't find
an explanation of why you decided to do this thing.  

Perhaps we need to add an explanation the Documentation directory
explaining what the intended use of the extended attribute case, and
perhaps referencing past cases were people tried to use this to bypass
the linux-api review process (f2fs's user.fadvise is not the first
time someone has tried to do this) thing), so that automated review
bots like Sashiko can explain why it's in such terrible taste to patch
authors, perhaps we need to do this.  Up until now, I think the
assumption is that file system maintainers would know something this
self-evident, and if not, if it was pointed out, they wouldn't try to
force such an ill-advised interface to Linus.

						- Ted

P.S.  As an exmaple of how I hanlded a somewhat similar scenario in
the past, my employer's cluster file system needed
FALLOC_FL_NO_HIDE_STALE to save $$$$ in TCO storage costs.  But the
concern was this would be an attractive nuisance for enterprise distro
users, who would see the massive performance increase, not realize
that this would leak stale data, which could result in user PII being
exposed, thus making life hard for Enterprise Linux's reputation.
(This wasn't an issue at $WORK because we enrypt all data at rest, and
the cluster file system daemon was a privileged server who (a) knew
what it was doing, and (b) only it would have access to set
FALLOC_FL_NO_HIDE_STALE.)

I disclosed *why* $WORK needed such a thing (it made a huge difference
to storage TCO costss for Google's Cluster Filesystem), and after
discussion and negotiation, we came to a compromise which involved my
keeping the (very small) patch out of tree, but reserving the code
point upstream to avoid future bitfield collisions.  They key here was
that I *knew* it was controversial, and I understood what problems it
might cause in the rest of the ecosystem.  That's part of the job of a
maintainer, and it's also why a company might want to hire a
maintainer.  They can represent the needs of multiple stakeholders ---
the upstream community, upstream users and the greater Linux
ecosystem, as well as their employer.

Re: [f2fs-dev] [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Jaegeuk Kim]

On 05/22, Theodore Tso wrote:
> On Fri, May 22, 2026 at 03:32:39AM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> > I went this route because Android heavily restricts ioctl() permissions
> > and we needed broader access for this to work within the framework. It’s
> > definitely a pragmatic choice just to get it running in production.
> > 
> > If ioctl() is a right way for upstream, I'm happy to change this patch. By
> > the way, I really don't understand why all the messages are so offensive,
> > even without trying to understand the problem or guiding right directions.
> 
> The reason why some people were getting annoyed was because as a Linux
> file system maintainer, there was an assumption that you would
> understand that extended attributes --- especially in the user.*
> namespace --- have an intended use case of storing a user-chosen small
> piece of metadata that would be stored in the file system.
> 
> Hijacking user.fadvise such that it no longer persistent stores an
> extended attribute for one specific file system --- such that if a
> hypothetical user application might decide to store a piece of
> application data in the extended attribute named "fadvise" would do
> something completely different on a single mainline file system is in
> such poor taste that I would have *hoped* that any Linux file system
> maintainer would know that this a Really Bad Thing, such that if
> someone in your development community suggested such an idea, you
> would reject it.

Thank you for the explanation. It seems I made a wrong assumption on the
usage of "user." prefix where each filesystem can support in different
ways.

> 
> And then, when people complained that it was a bad idea, and you
> decided to put in the f2fs branch, such that it would show up in
> linux-next, and there was no way for other file system developers to
> object (short of appealing to Linus) --- well, that's basically you
> taking advantage of your file system maintainer privileges.  And this
> is why I started proposing whether we needed to appeal this to Linus
> so he could make the call to reject something that the community had
> already told you was in terrible, terrible taste.

To be fair, I hadn't queued it in linux-next for weeks since the first
post, and was waiting for more feedbacks. If I was able to hear "user."
is a generic prefix used for all filesystems and use ioctl from the beginning,
I'd just drop and be able to start arguing with security folks back. Since
my employer is funding for production mainly, not much upstream work, I
couldn't sit and wait for the response for months. :(

> 
> As far as trying to understand why you were doing this --- I have to
> turn that question around.  Why didn't *you* explain why you needed to
> do this thing?  I went through the e-mail history, and I couldn't find
> an explanation of why you decided to do this thing.  

I shared some motivation when replying to Darrick's feedback [1], but yes,
it was not enough for all heads-up. The problem started that some speicific
application needs as many high-order pages as possible mostly for reads. So,
I thought we can turn on large folio on the specific files per hints. One way
for the hints was using immutable bit, but it turned out it's very hard to
manage disabling the bit whenever deleting the files. Along with limited
ioctl() and requiring inode eviction to manage large folio activation, I had
to implement this path.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/aeA5C8byIpXWla7f@google.com/

> 
> Perhaps we need to add an explanation the Documentation directory
> explaining what the intended use of the extended attribute case, and
> perhaps referencing past cases were people tried to use this to bypass
> the linux-api review process (f2fs's user.fadvise is not the first
> time someone has tried to do this) thing), so that automated review
> bots like Sashiko can explain why it's in such terrible taste to patch
> authors, perhaps we need to do this.  Up until now, I think the
> assumption is that file system maintainers would know something this
> self-evident, and if not, if it was pointed out, they wouldn't try to
> force such an ill-advised interface to Linus.

I believe this helps a lot to all newbies like me.

I really appreciate your feedback.

> 
> 						- Ted
> 
> P.S.  As an exmaple of how I hanlded a somewhat similar scenario in
> the past, my employer's cluster file system needed
> FALLOC_FL_NO_HIDE_STALE to save $$$$ in TCO storage costs.  But the
> concern was this would be an attractive nuisance for enterprise distro
> users, who would see the massive performance increase, not realize
> that this would leak stale data, which could result in user PII being
> exposed, thus making life hard for Enterprise Linux's reputation.
> (This wasn't an issue at $WORK because we enrypt all data at rest, and
> the cluster file system daemon was a privileged server who (a) knew
> what it was doing, and (b) only it would have access to set
> FALLOC_FL_NO_HIDE_STALE.)
> 
> I disclosed *why* $WORK needed such a thing (it made a huge difference
> to storage TCO costss for Google's Cluster Filesystem), and after
> discussion and negotiation, we came to a compromise which involved my
> keeping the (very small) patch out of tree, but reserving the code
> point upstream to avoid future bitfield collisions.  They key here was
> that I *knew* it was controversial, and I understood what problems it
> might cause in the rest of the ecosystem.  That's part of the job of a
> maintainer, and it's also why a company might want to hire a
> maintainer.  They can represent the needs of multiple stakeholders ---
> the upstream community, upstream users and the greater Linux
> ecosystem, as well as their employer.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Linux-f2fs-devel mailing list
> Linux-f2fs-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-f2fs-devel

Re: [f2fs-dev] [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Theodore Tso]

On Fri, May 22, 2026 at 05:08:41PM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> 
> Thank you for the explanation. It seems I made a wrong assumption on the
> usage of "user." prefix where each filesystem can support in different
> ways.

The "user." prefix is used by all userspace applications that wish to
store extended attributes.  For example, user.mime_type,
user.xdg.origin_url, user.charset, user.appache_handler, etc

For more information, see:

    https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/CommonExtendedAttribute
    https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Extended_attributes

I certainly assumed this was common knowledge across all file system
maintainers, but this was apparently not true in your case.  I don't
know how this could be the case given that f2fs implements extended
attributes, and I would have thought you would have known that when
testing that feature.

> I shared some motivation when replying to Darrick's feedback [1], but yes,
> it was not enough for all heads-up. The problem started that some speicific
> application needs as many high-order pages as possible mostly for reads. So,
> I thought we can turn on large folio on the specific files per hints. One way
> for the hints was using immutable bit, but it turned out it's very hard to
> manage disabling the bit whenever deleting the files. Along with limited
> ioctl() and requiring inode eviction to manage large folio activation, I had
> to implement this path.
> 
> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/aeA5C8byIpXWla7f@google.com/

Actually, you still haven't explained your use case, at least, not
well enough for me to understand what you are trying to do.

So an application wants a particular file to use as many high-order
pages as possible.  Why?  What sort of guarantees do you need to
provide?  What happens if they can't be provided?  What happens if a
possibly malicious, or at least gready, application uses this
interface to grab a lot of high-order pages?

From your patch:

1. setxattr(file, "user.fadvise", &value, sizeof(unsigned int), 0)
 -> register the inode number for large folio
2. chmod(0400, file)
 -> make Read-Only
3. open()
 -> f2fs_iget() with large folio
4. open(WRITE), mkwrite on mmap, chmod(WRITE)
 -> return error
5. iput() and open()
 -> goto #3
6. unlink
 -> deregister the inode number

Why should making the file read-only matter?  And when you say
"derigster the inode number", why should this be related to deleting
the inode?

This is an interface which seems to be very specific to your use case.
What if those requirements change over time?  What if you want pull in
a file without making it be read-only?  And what if you want to
release the large-order pages without deleting the file?

						- Ted

Re: [PATCH v2] f2fs: another way to set large folio by remembering inode number

[Christian Brauner]

On 2026-05-21 11:57 -0400, Theodore Tso wrote:
> On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 01:51:08AM -0700, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > > You haven't sent a proposal.  This is a reply to a reply to a reply of a
> > > patch.  There's no justification for why f2fs is so special that it
> > > needs this.  What the hell is going on?  You know this is not the way to
> > > get code merged into Linux.
> > 
> > None of this got properly answers, and this broken interface now landed
> > in linux-next. IT is offloading a user.* xattr which is free-form
> > user data with semantics that are weird to say it very nicely.
> > 
> > All this was done against the advice in the mailing list discussion.
> 
> So let me get this straight.  This is a magic xattr interface which is
> not even persisted in the file system, but instead sets a 32-bit
> bitmask in the struct inode which disappears once the inode gets
> flushed from the inode stack.  And it uses a generic xattr name,
> "user.fadvise".
> 
> There's no way in *hell* any other file system is likely to adopt such
> a broken interface, so why didn't you just use an ioctl to set this
> magic f2fs-specific flag?
> 
> > I think at some point we just need to stop taking f2fs updates likes
> > this.
> 
> Well, that's ultiamtely up to Linus.  I'll say that if I were Linus
> (and I'm glad I'm not :-), and I saw this in a pull request, I'd
> reject it out of hand.  But whether it's worth making a huge fuss and
> asking escalating this mess to Linus, we probably should get a bit
> more community consensus before taking such a drastic step.
> 
> Christian, since you're one of the VFS maintaienrs, what's your
> opinion about escalating this to Linus?

I think we don't need to involve Linus.
The interface as is is broken. Using xattrs for this makes no sense
whatsoever.