ext2 ordering/timing of writes

From: Muthian S
Date: Sun Jan 11 2004 - 21:19:59 EST


Hi,

I understand that ext2 provides very little guarantees on the ordering or timing of metadata and data writes. Could someone please confirm that the following sequence of events can indeed happen in practice ? The sequence does not lead to any specific integrity or consistency concern, but is an issue for something I am working on.

1. Block B1 allocated to inode I1
2. Inode block containing I1 written to disk
3. B1 freed from I1 (partial truncate of file)
4. B1 assigned to new inode I2
5. B1 written to disk in the context of I2
6. I2 deleted, freeing B1
7. B1 again assigned to I1
8. Inode block containing I1 written to disk
9. Inode block containing I2 written to disk

If there is any ordering policy that would preclude this sequence in ext2, please let me know.
I know that ext3 provides special ordering that would prevent reuse of a block before the delete reaches disk, but is there something similar in ext2 ?

thanks a lot!
Muthian.

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