Re: ext4 features

H. Peter Anvin
2006-07-05T05:13:22Z

Bill Davidsen wrote:
>>
>> DC> Easily doable in userspace, why bother with kernel programming
>>
>> In userspace you can't automatically delete the files when the space
>> becomes needed. The LD_PRELOAD/glibc methods also have the
>> disadvantage of having to figure out where a file goes when it's
>> deleted, depending on which device it happens to reside on. Demanding
>> read access to /proc/mounts just to do rm could cause problems.
>>
>> Userspace has had 10 years to invent a good solution. If it was so
>> easy, it would probably have been done.
>>
> Actually, if it were so important it WOULD have been done. I suspect
> that the issue is not lack of a good solution, but lack of a good
> problem. The behavior you propose requires a lot of kernel cleverness,
> including make the inodes seem to go away, so the count is "right" for
> what the user sees.
>

The real solution for it is snapshots.

-hpa