Re: 2G file size limitation question

Matti Aarnio (matti.aarnio@tele.fi)
Mon, 12 Jan 1998 09:04:49 +0000 (/etc/localtime)

Chip Salzenberg wrote:
> According to Theodore Y. Ts'o:
> > If the VFS layer can handle 64-bits, we can make the ext2 structure
> > handle 64-bits.
>
> I wasn't going to say anything, but: I'm currently working on making
> the VFS and paging code handle files larger than 2G. So if anyone
> else has in mind to do this, please talk to me and/or wait for me to
> do the hard work. :-)

Fine, but at least with EXT2, once the VFS is 64-bit, there
appears a surprise from rlimit data, which is defined as
"long", that is, signed 32-bits with 32-bit machines...

Perhaps that code should be changes to detect the magic
"unlimited" value (RLIM_INFINITY), and thus raise the limit
up to 4G, until the EXT2 can store larger i_size entries.
(fs/ext2/inode.c, look for "rlim_cur" variables.)
However there is no point in changeing it before the VFS
layer's i_size changes from off_t to size_t, or preferrably
to loff_t. (size_t is "unsigned long" at i386, which doesn't
help that much.)

> --
> Chip Salzenberg - a.k.a. - <chip@pobox.com>

/Matti Aarnio <matti.aarnio@tele.fi>