Re: Changing label of a mounted XFS filesystem

Jeff Liu
2014-07-03T12:03:38Z

Hi,

On 07/03/2014 07:29 PM, Matthias Schniedermeyer wrote:
> Hi
>
>
> Is there a particular reason that the label of a mounted XFS fileystem
> can't be changed?

Maybe since we have no user request for this function? :)

> The man-page of xfs_admin gives a blanket "Devices that are mounted
> cannot be modified" but no explanation for why that is.
>
> In my case it's the label of the root-filesystem i want to change. So to
> change it i would have to boot the computer with some kind of live or
> rescure-system. Or i would need to temporarily connect the device to
> another computer, both aren't really nice hoops to jump through just to
> change a few characters.
>
> The only thing i can compare this to is ext2 and with ext2 (/boot
> partition, so it really is ext2) i can change the label to my hearts
> content, even the device is mounted.
>
> For my case i could live with it if i could remount the filesystem RO,
> change the label and then having to reboot the machine, still nicer than
> the other 2 options.

Btrfs support set/change label on a mounted file system via ioctl(2), maybe we
can implement it if that sounds useful to our users.

Cheers,
-Jeff