Re: [REVIEW] Don't make lazy counters default for mkfs

[Niv Sardi <xaiki@cxhome.ath.cx>]

Mark Goodwin <markgw@sgi.com> writes:

> Timothy Shimmin wrote:
>> Nathan Scott wrote:
>>> On Fri, 2008-02-29 at 17:19 -0600, Russell Cattelan wrote:
>>>>> I thought about that; xfs *could* stick someting in /proc/fs/xfs
>>>> with
>>>>> supported features or somesuch.
>>>>>
>>>>> But, the kernel you mkfs under isn't necessarily the one you're
>>>> going to
>>>>> need to fall back to tomorrow, though...
>>>>>
>>>>>   
>>>> True but at least it could make a bit of a intelligent decision.
>>>> and maybe a warning for a while about potentially incompatible
>>>> flags. 
>>>
>>> Might also be a good idea to require -f to force a mkfs of a filesystem
>>> which the kernel doesn't support.
>>>
>>      974981: mkfs.xfs should warn if it is about to create a fs that
>> cannot be mounted
>>
>> Ivan was wanting this in December last year. Remember, Mark?
>> He wanted to know what XFS features the running kernel supported?
>
> It was worse than that - IIRC, he wanted to know what features are
> supported by the XFS kernel module he just installed (this was part
> of an Appman upgrade scenario). I thought we rejected that bug ?
>
>>
>> I don't think Dave (dgc) and others were not so keen on it IIRC.
>
> anyone recall the reasons?

Yes, we got to the consensus that having mkfs check for kernel stuff is
plain wrong, and there are a load of reasons to that, the most
convincing is that you can have no XFS support in the kernel at mkfs
time (i.e. module, that'll be loaded only on mount). Others reasons go
along the line of:
* You could be mkfsing for another box/kernel.
* We want people to run latest kernels if they run latest xfsprogs =)

Cheers,
-- 
Niv Sardi