Re: [patch] ext2fs: free inode warnings

[Kevin Kreamer]

On Sun, Aug 05, 2001 at 08:07:33PM +0200, Marcus Brinkmann said:
> On Sun, Aug 05, 2001 at 01:28:01AM -0500, Kevin Kreamer wrote:
> > Well, I am mostly interested in getting rid of the warnings, however 
> > the approach.  It's just that this way seemed the most direct approach 
> > to me.  If you want to do it a different (better) way, that's 
> > certainly cool.
> 
> The bets way to get rid of the warnings is to convince us that they should
> be gotten rid of.
> 
> The warning has a purpose:  It warns you that something unexpected happened.
> Why it did happen is something that should be investigated.

Ok, I've investigated it on my machine, and it's caused by (in my setup) 
Linux deleting files on a hurd-owned partition.  So, they've served their 
purpose in my case, and I'd like to be able to get rid of them.

> We know of one case where it happens: You delete files in Linux on a Hurd
> owned partition.  It would be nice if the linux kernel gets changed to clean
> the relevant field for the Hurd on hurd owned ext2fs systems.  This way, we
> would get rid of the warnings in one common case.

I agree this would get rid of the warnings in this common case, but I still 
think it'd be useful to have this switch to turn off the warnings until 
Linux gets fixed and for use with other common cases (both now and in 
the future).  (Also, I'm not nearly comfortable enough to do that 
with Linux's kernel; I feel a little weird as it is fooling with hurd's 
filesystem.)

> People occasionally report they see warnings although they didn't delete
> files under Linux.  This is a case that should concern us.  Without
> understanding how this can happen we don't know what the right reaction is.

Ok, I understand this.  Let's make the default so that warnings are enabled, 
and the command line switch turns them off.  Would you accept a patch that 
did that?

> You can work around it wthout changing the code by sending the stdout/stderr
> output of the ext2fs server to /dev/null.  This should work for all except
> the root filesystem.

Well, this patch should work for the root filesystem as well.  Also, I 
want to get rid of just these warnings, not all warnings and errors, so 
that I know if something really bad happens.  This command-line switch 
lets me do that.

Kevin

-- 
Kevin Kreamer