Re: knfsd and system crashes

Bill Hawes (whawes@star.net)
Sat, 15 Nov 1997 09:58:54 -0500

Martin von Loewis wrote:
> PMFJI, I think the problem is the assumption that the volume has to
> be searched in the first place. Most file systems can open an inode
> very efficiently when given an inode number.
>
> The Linux VFS currently offers the iget function to retrieve an inode
> when given an inode number. Unfortunately, this interface is not very
> reliable when it comes to error checking, like when the client gives a
> stale handle. Nevertheless, this is IMHO the route to go. You can
> either extend the read_inode operation to support better error
> reporting for deleted inodes, or introduce new interface.

Hi Martin,
The problem is that I need a dentry (i.e. a path) in order to use the
file in the filehandle. Getting the inode from iget() is no problem, but
unless I've overlooked something major, I don't see how this helps get
the path.

I've included the parent directory inode number in the FH as well, but
if the parent dentry isn't cached somewhere, I don't see any way around
searching the exported volumes to see who owns the inode in question.

Regards,
Bill