[Gluster-devel] xattr support

[Hans K. Rosbach]

On Fri, 2011-05-06 at 09:57 -0400, Jeff Darcy wrote:
> On 05/06/2011 08:47 AM, Hans K. Rosbach wrote:
> > Hi, I am receiving mixed signals on whether GlusterFS actually
> > support xattrs on the client side. I am told that it does support
> > xattrs but my tests seems to indicate that it does not. I also
> > seem to recollect reading a post to this list saying that it does
> > not support xattrs, but I am not able to find it now.
> > 
> > Also a google search pretty much only tells me what I already
> > know; that GlusterFS uses xattrs extensively on the server side.
> > 
> > Here is a test on the clients root filesystem (ext4):
> > [root /]# touch testfile
> > [root /]# attr -s testattr -V 2 testfile
> 
> When I attempt this same operation on an ext4 filesystem, I get
> EOPNOTSUPP. When I do "man attr" it tells me why:
> 
> 	attr - extended attributes on XFS filesystem objects
> 
> The filesystem-independent programs for manipulating xattrs are getfattr
> and setxattr. When I do this it works fine:
> 
> 	setfattr -n user.testattr -v "foo" testfile
> 
> Note that, in addition to using setfattr instead of attr, the above
> conforms to the namespace requirements of generic xattrs by using the
> "user" namespace - which depends on the filesystem being mounted with
> the "user_xattr" flag.  Use "man 5 attr" for more information about
> how to use non-XFS xattrs.

I see what you mean. However this test gives the same results:
Ext4:
[root /]# setfattr -n user.testattr -v "foo" testfile

GlusterFS:
[root storage1]# setfattr -n user.testattr -v "foo" glusterfile
setfattr: glusterfile: Operation not supported

Also, it seems both attr and setfattr/getfattr are from the same
package: attr-2.4.44-4.el6.x86_64
I suspect these were separate in earlier distro versions perhaps.

# rpm -ql attr
/usr/bin/attr
/usr/bin/getfattr
/usr/bin/setfattr
...

So, does GlusterFS not support xattrs or is my config somehow wrong?

Sincerly
  Hans K. Rosbach