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authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2018-10-24 17:42:24 +0100
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2018-10-24 17:42:24 +0100
commit5993692f09582accb4cb7af11d344598af43c3b8 (patch)
tree062447eb44769d6da6e50302853eac1bb1d6e5d3 /Documentation/filesystems/ext4/inlinedata.rst
parentMerge tag 'f2fs-for-4.20-rc1' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jaegeuk/f2fs (diff)
parentext4: fix use-after-free race in ext4_remount()'s error path (diff)
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Merge tag 'ext4_for_linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tytso/ext4
Pull ext4 updates from Ted Ts'o: - further restructure ext4 documentation - fix up ext4's delayed allocation for bigalloc file systems - fix up some syzbot-detected races in EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT, EXT4_IOC_SWAP_BOOT, and ext4_remount - ... and a few other miscellaneous bugs and optimizations. * tag 'ext4_for_linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tytso/ext4: (21 commits) ext4: fix use-after-free race in ext4_remount()'s error path ext4: cache NULL when both default_acl and acl are NULL docs: promote the ext4 data structures book to top level docs: move ext4 administrative docs to admin-guide/ jbd2: fix use after free in jbd2_log_do_checkpoint() ext4: propagate error from dquot_initialize() in EXT4_IOC_FSSETXATTR ext4: fix setattr project check in fssetxattr ioctl docs: make ext4 readme tables readable docs: fix ext4 documentation table formatting problems docs: generate a separate ext4 pdf file from the documentation ext4: convert fault handler to use vm_fault_t type ext4: initialize retries variable in ext4_da_write_inline_data_begin() ext4: fix EXT4_IOC_SWAP_BOOT ext4: fix build error when DX_DEBUG is defined ext4: fix argument checking in EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT ext4: fix reserved cluster accounting at page invalidation time ext4: adjust reserved cluster count when removing extents ext4: reduce reserved cluster count by number of allocated clusters ext4: fix reserved cluster accounting at delayed write time ext4: add new pending reservation mechanism ...
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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+Inline Data
+-----------
+
+The inline data feature was designed to handle the case that a file's
+data is so tiny that it readily fits inside the inode, which
+(theoretically) reduces disk block consumption and reduces seeks. If the
+file is smaller than 60 bytes, then the data are stored inline in
+``inode.i_block``. If the rest of the file would fit inside the extended
+attribute space, then it might be found as an extended attribute
+“system.data” within the inode body (“ibody EA”). This of course
+constrains the amount of extended attributes one can attach to an inode.
+If the data size increases beyond i\_block + ibody EA, a regular block
+is allocated and the contents moved to that block.
+
+Pending a change to compact the extended attribute key used to store
+inline data, one ought to be able to store 160 bytes of data in a
+256-byte inode (as of June 2015, when i\_extra\_isize is 28). Prior to
+that, the limit was 156 bytes due to inefficient use of inode space.
+
+The inline data feature requires the presence of an extended attribute
+for “system.data”, even if the attribute value is zero length.
+
+Inline Directories
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The first four bytes of i\_block are the inode number of the parent
+directory. Following that is a 56-byte space for an array of directory
+entries; see ``struct ext4_dir_entry``. If there is a “system.data”
+attribute in the inode body, the EA value is an array of
+``struct ext4_dir_entry`` as well. Note that for inline directories, the
+i\_block and EA space are treated as separate dirent blocks; directory
+entries cannot span the two.
+
+Inline directory entries are not checksummed, as the inode checksum
+should protect all inline data contents.