Re: [PATCH v1 2/5] ntfs: preserve timestamps when creating hard links

[Hyunchul Lee]

Hi Baolin,

On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 05:35:12PM +0800, Baolin Liu wrote:
> From: Xuewen Wang <wangxuewen@xxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> ntfs_link() resets atime, mtime and ctime on both the source file and
> the destination directory after creating a hard link. This overwrites
> the source file's atime and mtime and the directory's atime.
> 
> Update only the source ctime and the destination directory mtime/ctime.
> Mark both inodes dirty so these changes are queued for writeback instead
> of relying on the earlier FILE_NAME write.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Xuewen Wang <wangxuewen@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> Tested with the complete five-patch series in QEMU. Explicitly assigned
> atime and mtime are preserved across ordinary hard-link creation and
> O_TMPFILE publication. A separate persistence check set and synced
> atime/mtime on the published file, then verified those values after
> cache eviction, remount and a fresh boot.
> 
>  fs/ntfs/namei.c | 7 ++++---
>  1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/fs/ntfs/namei.c b/fs/ntfs/namei.c
> index 0c84a5c..4442e1d 100644
> --- a/fs/ntfs/namei.c
> +++ b/fs/ntfs/namei.c
> @@ -1663,12 +1663,13 @@ static int ntfs_link(struct dentry *old_dentry, struct inode *dir,
>  	}
>  
>  	inode_inc_iversion(dir);
> -	simple_inode_init_ts(dir);
> +	inode_set_mtime_to_ts(dir, inode_set_ctime_current(dir));
> +	mark_inode_dirty(dir);
>  
>  	inode_inc_iversion(vi);
> -	simple_inode_init_ts(vi);
> +	inode_set_ctime_current(vi);
> +	mark_inode_dirty(vi);

Could you also update the last_mft_change_time of $FILE_NAME? it still
appears to retains the old ctime.

Additionaly, could you run run xfstests generic/004 and generic/389?

>  
> -	/* timestamp is already written, so mark_inode_dirty() is unneeded. */
>  	d_instantiate(dentry, vi);
>  	mutex_unlock(&dir_ni->mrec_lock);
>  	mutex_unlock(&ni->mrec_lock);
> 

-- 
Thanks,
Hyunchul