Re: [RFC] ext3 freeze feature ver 0.2

Andreas Dilger
2008-02-26T17:08:36Z

On Feb 26, 2008 08:39 -0800, Eric Sandeen wrote:
> Takashi Sato wrote:
>
> > o Elevate XFS ioctl numbers (XFS_IOC_FREEZE and XFS_IOC_THAW) to the VFS
> > As Andreas Dilger and Christoph Hellwig advised me, I have elevated
> > them to include/linux/fs.h as below.
> > #define FIFREEZE _IOWR('X', 119, int)
> > 　 #define FITHAW _IOWR('X', 120, int)
> > The ioctl numbers used by XFS applications don't need to be changed.
> > But my following ioctl for the freeze needs the parameter
> > as the timeout period. So if XFS applications don't want the timeout
> > feature as the current implementation, the parameter needs to be
> > changed 1 (level?) into 0.
>
> So, existing xfs applications calling the xfs ioctl now will behave
> differently, right? We can only keep the same ioctl number if the
> calling semantics are the same. Keeping the same number but changing
> the semantics is harmful, IMHO....

Do we know what this parameter was supposed to mean?

We could special case "1" if needed to keep compatibility (documenting
this clearly), either making it == 0, or some very long timeout (1h
or whatever). A relatively minor wart I think.

Cheers, Andreas
--
Andreas Dilger
Sr. Staff Engineer, Lustre Group
Sun Microsystems of Canada, Inc.