From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Fri, 3 Aug 2001 04:31:54 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Fri, 3 Aug 2001 04:31:44 -0400 Received: from chunnel.redhat.com ([199.183.24.220]:46833 "EHLO dukat.scot.redhat.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Fri, 3 Aug 2001 04:31:34 -0400 Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 09:30:57 +0100 From: "Stephen C. Tweedie" To: Daniel Phillips , "Stephen C. Tweedie" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: intermediate summary of ext3-2.4-0.9.4 thread Message-ID: <20010803093057.Y12470@redhat.com> In-Reply-To: <3B5FC7FB.D5AF0932@zip.com.au> <20010801170230.B7053@redhat.com> <20010802110341.B17927@emma1.emma.line.org> <01080219261601.00440@starship> <20010802193750.B12425@emma1.emma.line.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20010802193750.B12425@emma1.emma.line.org>; from matthias.andree@stud.uni-dortmund.de on Thu, Aug 02, 2001 at 07:37:50PM +0200 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hi, On Thu, Aug 02, 2001 at 07:37:50PM +0200, Matthias Andree wrote: > So this part is covered. > > The other thing is, that Linux is the only known system that does > asynchronous rename/link/unlink/symlink -- people have claimed it might > not be the only one, but failed to name systems. Not true. There are tons of others. The issue was that synchronous directory updates are *optional* on many systems (Linux included), but that Linux's support for that is really inefficient since it ends up syncing file metadata updates too (and it's much more efficient to use fsync for that.) > Still, some people object to a dirsync mount option. Who? People who have discussed this in the past have certainly not objected to my knowledge. It would clearly help situations like this (as would a dirsync chattr option.) > > The prescription for symlinks is, if you want them safely on disk you > > have to explicitly fsync the containing directory. > > Yes, and it doesn't matter, since MTAs don't use symlinks (symlinks > waste inodes on most systems). Irrelevant. We're talking about what makes sensible semantics, not what assumptions any specific application makes. It makes no sense to say that dirsync won't affect symlinks just because some existing applications don't rely on that! Cheers, Stephen