Re: [RFC 11/32] xfs: convert to struct inode_time

Arnd Bergmann
2014-06-02T12:52:49Z

On Monday 02 June 2014 07:57:37 Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 02, 2014 at 12:56:42PM +0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> >
> > I think you misunderstood what I suggested: the intent is to avoid
> > seeing things break in 2038 by making them break much earlier. We have
> > a solution for ext2 file systems, it's called ext4, and we just need
> > to ensure that everybody knows they have to migrate eventually.
> >
> > At some point before the mid 2030ies, you should no longer be able to
> > build a kernel that has support for ext2 or any other module that will
> > run into bugs later....
>
> Even for ext4, it's not quite so simple as that. You only have
> support for times post 2038 if you are using an inode size > 128
> bytes. There are a very, very large number of machines which even
> today, are using 128 byte inodes with ext4 for performance reasons.
>
> The vast majority of those machines which I know of can probably move
> to 256 byte inodes relatively easily, since hard drive replacement
> cycles are order 5-6 years tops, so I'm not that concerned, but it
> just goes to show this is a very complicated problem.

One stupid question about the current code:

static inline void ext4_decode_extra_time(struct inode_time *time, __le32 extra)
{
if (sizeof(time->tv_sec) > 4)
time->tv_sec |= (__u64)(le32_to_cpu(extra) & EXT4_EPOCH_MASK)
<< 32;
time->tv_nsec = (le32_to_cpu(extra) & EXT4_NSEC_MASK) >> EXT4_EPOCH_BITS;
}

#define EXT4_EINODE_GET_XTIME(xtime, einode, raw_inode) \
do { \
if (EXT4_FITS_IN_INODE(raw_inode, einode, xtime)) \
(einode)->xtime.tv_sec = \
(signed)le32_to_cpu((raw_inode)->xtime); \
else \
(einode)->xtime.tv_sec = 0; \
if (EXT4_FITS_IN_INODE(raw_inode, einode, xtime ## _extra)) \
ext4_decode_extra_time(&(einode)->xtime, \
raw_inode->xtime ## _extra); \
else \
(einode)->xtime.tv_nsec = 0; \
} while (0)

For a time between 2038 and 2106, this looks like xtime.tv_sec is
negative when ext4_decode_extra_time gets called, so the '|=' operator
doesn't actually do anything. Shouldn't that be '+='?

Arnd