Re: extended attributes

[Emmanuel Dreyfus <manu%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 09:30:40AM -0500, Eric Haszlakiewicz wrote:
> eh?  Don't corrupted filesystems cause a panic anyway?  What is it about
> extended attributes that makes this more likely?

You rarely write to the executable files that you need in order to boot
to single user, but modifying attribute backing stores is a common
operation. This makes the later more susceptible to being corrupted at
the time the filesystem is mounted.

> Is this a jumping-though-a-NULL-pointer panic, or a "oops, something is
> inconsistent with ext. attrs. so I'll call panic()" panic?  If it's the
> second, can the extended attributes be turned off at that point?

I experienced various types of crashes.

-- 
Emmanuel Dreyfus
manu%netbsd.org@localhost