[Gluster-devel] Readdir d_off encoding

[Jeff Darcy]

> I don't love the bit-stealing hack either, but in practice keep in mind
> this all seems to be about ext4.  If you want reliable nfs readdir with
> 16M-entry directories and all the rest you can get that already with
> xfs.

Do we know it's just ext4?  I'm not even sure that's all of the newer
or less well known Linux file systems are immune, let alone those on
BSD or other platforms where GlusterFS must run.  The only other FS that
I'm sure doesn't have this problem is ZFS.  My worry is that, to someone
who has already been affected by this, telling them it doesn't happen on
XFS is like pouring salt in the wound.  They're more likely to abandon
GlusterFS than embrace XFS.

*In practice* I believe that ext4 is a reality we must deal with.  Any
discussion of this bug's frequency, or of solutions' efficacy, has to
take that into account.  If solution X works perfectly on XFS but still
fails regularly on ext4, then for evaluation purposes it's the "fails
regularly" part that counts.  A solution Y which fails less regularly
on both platforms might well be preferable, even if it's worse than X
on XFS.