From: Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxx> One of our users is complaining that his backup tool is upset on ext2 (while it's happy on ext3, xfs, ...) because of the mtime change. The problem is: mkdir foo mkdir bar mkdir foo/a Now under ext2: mv foo/a foo/b changes mtime of 'foo/a' (foo/b after the move). That does not really make sence and it does not happen under any other filesystem I've seen. More complicated is: mv foo/a bar/a This changes mtime of foo/a (bar/a after the move) and it makes some sence since we had to update parent directory pointer of foo/a. But again, no other filesystem does this. So after some thoughts I'd vote for consistency and change ext2 to behave the same as other filesystems. Do not update mtime of a moved directory. Specs don't say anything about it (neither that it should, nor that it should not be updated) and other common filesystems (ext3, ext4, xfs, reiserfs, fat, ...) don't do it. So let's become more consistent. Spotted by ronny.pretzsch@xxxxxx, initial fix by Jörn Engel. Reported-by: <ronny.pretzsch@xxxxxx> Cc: <hare@xxxxxxx> Cc: Jörn Engel <joern@xxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxx> Cc: <linux-ext4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- fs/ext2/dir.c | 5 +++-- fs/ext2/ext2.h | 2 +- fs/ext2/namei.c | 5 +++-- 3 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) diff -puN fs/ext2/dir.c~ext2-do-not-update-mtime-of-a-moved-directory fs/ext2/dir.c --- a/fs/ext2/dir.c~ext2-do-not-update-mtime-of-a-moved-directory +++ a/fs/ext2/dir.c @@ -450,7 +450,7 @@ ino_t ext2_inode_by_name(struct inode *d /* Releases the page */ void ext2_set_link(struct inode *dir, struct ext2_dir_entry_2 *de, - struct page *page, struct inode *inode) + struct page *page, struct inode *inode, int update_times) { loff_t pos = page_offset(page) + (char *) de - (char *) page_address(page); @@ -465,7 +465,8 @@ void ext2_set_link(struct inode *dir, st ext2_set_de_type(de, inode); err = ext2_commit_chunk(page, pos, len); ext2_put_page(page); - dir->i_mtime = dir->i_ctime = CURRENT_TIME_SEC; + if (update_times) + dir->i_mtime = dir->i_ctime = CURRENT_TIME_SEC; EXT2_I(dir)->i_flags &= ~EXT2_BTREE_FL; mark_inode_dirty(dir); } diff -puN fs/ext2/ext2.h~ext2-do-not-update-mtime-of-a-moved-directory fs/ext2/ext2.h --- a/fs/ext2/ext2.h~ext2-do-not-update-mtime-of-a-moved-directory +++ a/fs/ext2/ext2.h @@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ extern struct ext2_dir_entry_2 * ext2_fi extern int ext2_delete_entry (struct ext2_dir_entry_2 *, struct page *); extern int ext2_empty_dir (struct inode *); extern struct ext2_dir_entry_2 * ext2_dotdot (struct inode *, struct page **); -extern void ext2_set_link(struct inode *, struct ext2_dir_entry_2 *, struct page *, struct inode *); +extern void ext2_set_link(struct inode *, struct ext2_dir_entry_2 *, struct page *, struct inode *, int); /* ialloc.c */ extern struct inode * ext2_new_inode (struct inode *, int); diff -puN fs/ext2/namei.c~ext2-do-not-update-mtime-of-a-moved-directory fs/ext2/namei.c --- a/fs/ext2/namei.c~ext2-do-not-update-mtime-of-a-moved-directory +++ a/fs/ext2/namei.c @@ -320,7 +320,7 @@ static int ext2_rename (struct inode * o if (!new_de) goto out_dir; inode_inc_link_count(old_inode); - ext2_set_link(new_dir, new_de, new_page, old_inode); + ext2_set_link(new_dir, new_de, new_page, old_inode, 1); new_inode->i_ctime = CURRENT_TIME_SEC; if (dir_de) drop_nlink(new_inode); @@ -352,7 +352,8 @@ static int ext2_rename (struct inode * o inode_dec_link_count(old_inode); if (dir_de) { - ext2_set_link(old_inode, dir_de, dir_page, new_dir); + if (old_dir != new_dir) + ext2_set_link(old_inode, dir_de, dir_page, new_dir, 0); inode_dec_link_count(old_dir); } return 0; _ -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-ext4" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html