I'm using the -d option of mke2fs to construct a filesystem, I'm seeing that some xattrs are being corrupted. The filesystem builds with no errors but when mounted by the kernel, I see errors like "security.ima: No such attribute". The strace from such a failure is: mmap(NULL, 26258, PROT_READ, MAP_SHARED, 3, 0) = 0x7fdb36a8c000 close(3) = 0 getrlimit(RLIMIT_NOFILE, {rlim_cur=1024, rlim_max=64*1024}) = 0 lstat("mnt/foobar", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0755, st_size=1, ...}) = 0 listxattr("mnt/foobar", NULL, 0) = 30 listxattr("mnt/foobar", "security.SMACK64\0security.ima\0", 256) = 30 getxattr("mnt/foobar", "security.SMACK64", 0x0, 0) = 1 getxattr("mnt/foobar", "security.SMACK64", "_", 256) = 1 fstat(1, {st_mode=S_IFCHR|0620, st_rdev=makedev(136, 13), ...}) = 0 mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x7fdb36a8b000 write(1, "# file: mnt/foobar\n", 19# file: mnt/foobar) = 19 write(1, "security.SMACK64=\"_\"\n", 21security.SMACK64="_") = 21 getxattr("mnt/foobar", "security.ima", 0x0, 0) = -1 ENODATA (No data available) write(2, "mnt/foobar: ", 12mnt/foobar: ) = 12 write(2, "security.ima: No such attribute\n", 32security.ima: No such attribute) = 32= 32 so the attribute is there but the kernel gives ENODATA when trying to read it. http://www.nongnu.org/ext2-doc/ext2.html#CONTRIB-EXTENDED-ATTRIBUTES co ntains the small snippet that " The entry descriptors are sorted by attribute name, so that two extended attribute blocks can be compared efficiently. ". It doesn't specify what kind of sort. Looking at ext2fs, there is some sorting code through the qsort call using attr_compare() but it doesn't match what the kernel is doing in ext4_xattr_find_entry(). I put together this quick patch to test my theory that this causing the problem: Index: git/lib/ext2fs/ext_attr.c =================================================================== --- git.orig/lib/ext2fs/ext_attr.c +++ git/lib/ext2fs/ext_attr.c @@ -258,6 +258,7 @@ static struct ea_name_index ea_names[] = static int attr_compare(const void *a, const void *b) { const struct ext2_xattr *xa = a, *xb = b; + size_t len; if (xa->name == NULL) return +1; @@ -267,7 +268,11 @@ static int attr_compare(const void *a, c return -1; else if (!strcmp(xb->name, "system.data")) return +1; - return 0; + len = strlen(xa->name) - strlen(xb->name); + if (len) + return len; + + return strcmp(xa->name, xb->name); } static const char *find_ea_prefix(int index) This makes my filesystems work. Is this a bug? I'm assuming ext2fs shouldn't generate filesystems the kernel can't read? Is the above the correct fix? Cheers, Richard -- 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