Re: [Ext2-devel] Re: [RFD] FS behavior (I/O failure) in kernel summit

Matthew Wilcox
2005-06-16T11:37:46Z

On Wed, Jun 15, 2005 at 10:01:05AM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> We can only return EIO or EROFS. And while the write()
> which causes an I/O error that remounts the filesystem read/only can
> (and probably does) return EIO, any subsequent writes will return
> EROFS, and changing this would be hard, hackish, and probably wouldn't
> be accepted.

I wasn't quite sure why this would be so hard, so I took a look. Here's
how it works:

In fs/ext2/super.c, we do:
if (test_opt(sb, ERRORS_RO)) {
printk("Remounting filesystem read-only\n");
sb->s_flags |= MS_RDONLY;
}

>From here on, the VFS handles returning -EROFS (except for a couple
of ioctls and an xattr call). So it's not under the control of the
individual filesystem. One way of handling this would be to introduce a
new MS_ERRORS flag that allows the VFS to return -EIO instead of -EROFS
for a filesystem that contains errors.

--
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the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those
conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse
to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince
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he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." -- Mark Twain