[Gluster-users] rootfs, extended attributes

[Christopher Hawkins]

I'm using the latest source tree from mainline 3.0, and running into an issue with extended attributes. I'm sure this is the expected behavior, but maybe the dev's can suggest a way around it?

I have a cluster node that boots into an initramfs and never leaves it. It loads the gluster executables and libraries, mounts glusterfs at /mnt/gluster, and then creates a bunch of symlinks into that mount. For example, it might create a /data symlink that points to /mnt/gluster/data. But now when I try to write a file to /data, it says that extended attributes are not enabled on the filesystem. Now in the node's root filesystem (rootfs / initramfs), that is true. But the filesystem being mounted does have extended attributes... Other than not using initramfs but instead mounting an ext3 formatted ramdisk as a root device, is there any way around this? Seems like it would work, but glusterfs sees the / rootfs with no extended attributes and won't try to write. Initramfs has a lot of advantages like dynamic resizing and memory efficiency and I would hate to move to a static ramdisk unless there is no other way. 

Penny for your thoughts...   Thanks! 

Christopher Hawkins