Re: [PATCH v2 0/7] filesystem visibililty ioctls

[Kent Overstreet]

On Mon, Feb 12, 2024 at 05:47:40PM -0500, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 07, 2024 at 03:26:55PM -0500, Kent Overstreet wrote:
> > You've still got the ext4 version, we're not taking that away. But I
> > don't think other filesystems will want to deal with the hassle of
> > changing UUIDs at runtime, since that's effectively used for API access
> > via sysfs and debugfs.
> 
> Thanks. I misunderstood the log.  I didn't realize this was just about
> not hoisting the ioctl to the VFS level, and dropping the generic uuid
> set.
> 
> I'm not convinced that we should be using the UUID for kernel API
> access, if for no other reason that not all file systems have UUID's.
> Sure, modern file systems have UUID's, and individual file systems
> might have to have specific features that don't play well with UUID's
> changing while the file system is mounted.  But I'm hoping that we
> don't add any new interfaces that rely on using the UUID for API
> access at the VFS layer.  After all, ext2 (not just ext3 and ext4) has
> supported changing the UUID while the file system has been mounted for
> *decades*.

*nod*

The intention isn't for every filesystem to be using the UUID for API
access - there's no reason to for single device filesystems, after all.

The intent is rather - for filesystems that _do_ need the UUID as a
stable identifier, let's try to standardize how's it's exposed and
used...