[Cluster-devel] [PATCH] fs: push sync_filesystem() down to the file system's remount_fs()

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 04:28:23PM +0000, Steven Whitehouse wrote:
> 
> I guess the same is true for other file systems which are mounted ro
> too. So maybe a check for MS_RDONLY before doing the sync in those
> cases?

My original patch moved the sync_filesystem into the check for
MS_RDONLY in the core VFS code.  The objection was raised that there
might be some file system out there that might depend on this
behaviour.  I can't imagine why, but I suppose it's at least
theoretically possible.

So the idea is that this particular patch is *guaranteed* not to make
any difference.  That way there can be no question about the patch'es
correctness.

I'm going to follow up with a patch for ext4 that does exactly that,
but the idea is to allow each file system maintainer to do that for
their own file system.

I could do that as well for file systems that are "obviously"
read-only, but then I'll find out that there's some wierd case where
the file system can be used in a read-write fashion.  (Example: UDF is
normally used for DVD's, but at least in theory it can be used
read/write --- I'm told that Windows supports read-write UDF file
systems on USB sticks, and at least in theory it could be used as a
inter-OS exchange format in situations where VFAT and exFAT might not
be appropriate for various reasons.)

Cheers,

						- Ted