The following approach is based in Darrick's suggestion: int ioctl(fd, FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY, struct fsverity_arg *arg); struct fsverity_arg { int fsv_donor_fd; u64 fsv_offset; u64 fsv_size; }; fsv_offset and fsz_size must be a multiple of the file system block size. If the ioctl comples successfully, as a side effect the donor_fd will have a hole punch operation on the specified range. In other words, the equivalent of operation of fallocate(fsv_donor_fd, FALLOC_FL_PUNCH_HOLE, fsv_offset, fsv_size), and the file specified by fd will be protected using fsverity. It will be legal for fsv_donor_fd == fd, so this interface is a superset of the original FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY ioctl. This will hopefully make Christoph and Dave happy because the interface does not presuppose how ext4 and f2fs will implement fsverity behind the scenes. However, it does not forbid it, and the net cost is that ext4 and f2fs will have to implement code which transplants the blocks from the donor_fd to fd in the case where donor_fd != fd --- and in the case where blocks are encrypted using fscrypt, we will have to decrypt the blocks from donor_fd and possibly re-encrypt then in fd's per-file key, which means we'll have to add extra complexity to implement the decrypt and re-encrypt passing through the page cache. But if this helps resolve Christoph and Dave's objections, it shouldn't be _too_ much extra complexity. Before we go ahead an implement it, though, I'd appreciate a confirmation that this will indeed actually resolve their complaints. Thanks, - Ted