Re: intermediate summary of ext3-2.4-0.9.4 thread

Matthias Andree
2001-08-03T18:32:05Z

On Fri, 03 Aug 2001, David Weinehall wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 02, 2001 at 07:37:50PM +0200, Matthias Andree wrote:
> > Still, some people object to a dirsync mount option. But this has been
> > the actual reason for the thread - MTA authors are refusing to pamper
> > Linux and use chattr +S instead which gives unnecessary (premature) sync
> > operations on write() - but MTAs know how to fsync().
>
> So what you mean is that MTA authors refuse to pamper Linux through use
> of fsync of the directory, but can accept to "pamper" Linux through use
> of chattr +S?! This seem ridiculous. It seems equally ridiculous to
> demand that Linux should pamper for MTA authors that can't implement
> fsync on the directory instead of writing BSD-specific code.

It's a maintenance issue.

You effectively start wrapping up all relevant syscalls and have
system-specific interfaces. One wants the directory fsync()ed, the other
offers a special other trick to get the data flushed... what useful is
portability then if systems are so different?

> To me this seems mostly like a way of saying "Hey, we've finally found
> a way to make Linux look really bad compared to BSD-systems; let's

No wonder if the application chooses fully-synchronous operation on
Linux.

--
Matthias Andree