On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 06:33:47AM -0400, Jeff Layton wrote: > A patch has been merged for v5.8 that changes how syncfs() reports > errors. Change the sync() manpage accordingly. > > Signed-off-by: Jeff Layton <jlayton@xxxxxxxxxx> > --- > man2/sync.2 | 24 +++++++++++++++++++++++- > 1 file changed, 23 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) > > diff --git a/man2/sync.2 b/man2/sync.2 > index 7198f3311b05..27e04cff5845 100644 > --- a/man2/sync.2 > +++ b/man2/sync.2 > @@ -86,11 +86,26 @@ to indicate the error. > is always successful. > .PP > .BR syncfs () > -can fail for at least the following reason: > +can fail for at least the following reasons: > .TP > .B EBADF > .I fd > is not a valid file descriptor. > +.TP > +.B EIO > +An error occurred during synchronization. > +This error may relate to data written to any file on the filesystem, or on > +metadata related to the filesytem itself. > +.TP > +.B ENOSPC > +Disk space was exhausted while synchronizing. > +.TP > +.BR ENOSPC ", " EDQUOT > +Data was written to a files on NFS or another filesystem which does not > +allocate space at the time of a > +.BR write (2) > +system call, and some previous write failed due to insufficient > +storage space. > .SH VERSIONS > .BR syncfs () > first appeared in Linux 2.6.39; > @@ -121,6 +136,13 @@ or > .BR syncfs () > provide the same guarantees as fsync called on every file in > the system or filesystem respectively. > +.PP > +In mainline kernel versions prior to 5.8, > +.\" commit 735e4ae5ba28c886d249ad04d3c8cc097dad6336 > +.BR syncfs () > +will only fail with EBADF when passed a bad file descriptor. In 5.8 > +and later kernels, it will also report an error if one or more inodes failed > +to be written back since the last syncfs call. The sentence "In mainline kernel versions prior to 5.8, syncfs() will only fail with EBADF when passed a bad file descriptor" is ambiguous. It could mean that EBADF can now mean other things too. Maybe write: "In mainline kernel versions prior to 5.8, syncfs() will only fail when passed a bad file descriptor (EBADF)." - Eric
