Re: Moving ext3 journal file

[Andreas Dilger <adilger@turbolabs.com>]

On Nov 23, 2001  13:58 +0100, RaúlNúñez de Arenas Coronado wrote:
>     Is there any problem on moving the /.journal file (even renaming
> it) so it doesn't lives on the root? I mean, maintaining its inode
> number, of course ;))

The name is irrelevant.  The kernel only accesses the journal by inode
number, and only once at boot time.  Rather than "renaming" it and
causing problems, you should just unmount the filesystem, and run
"e2fsck -f /dev/hdX" (with e2fsck 1.25) and it will hide it for you.

>     Anyway, ext3 shouldn't (just an idea) show the journal as a
> normal file. It may add some load on the kernel, because the inode
> number should be compared with that of the journal every time a file
> is accessed, but it's just a suggestion ;))

???? This doesn't make sense.  Having the .journal file places no load
on the system.  OK, when you do "ls -a /" it has to list an extra file,
but that is so little work as to be unnoticable.  Even with a hidden
journal, it is still in an inode with an inode number, it's just not
in a directory anywhere.

As to "comparing the inode number to that of the journal every time a
file is accessed" it appears you just don't understand how file access
works in the kernel.

Cheers, Andreas
--
Andreas Dilger
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2resize/
http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/