Re: [PATCH/BUGFIX] ext2: update inode ctime on rename()

[Marcelo Tosatti <marcelo.tosatti@cyclades.com>]

Hi Chris,

It seems correct to update the "old_inode" inode ctime on rename().

The "mark_inode_dirty(old_inode)" in your patch does not seem to be
necessary because ext2_dec_count() will do it.

2.6 also does not update the ctime on rename() AFAICS. Lets get it fixed
there first.

Andrew, viro, anyone?

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Chris Siebenmann wrote:

>  Ext2 in 2.2.13+ updates the ctime of an inode on rename(), but this fix
> didn't make it into 2.4. Other filesystems (including ext3) do update
> inode ctime on rename in 2.4, and failure to do so makes various backup
> tools skip backing up renamed files during incremental backups. Here is
> the very simple patch to fix this.
>
>  My earlier message to linux-kernel and ext2-devel has a longer
> discussion of the situation; you can find it at
> 	http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0401.1/0594.html
> (Or with the original subject in a local archive of linux-kernel).
> It hasn't gotten any replies, which may or may not be a good sign.
>
>  Because I feel that not capturing renamed files in incremental
> backups is a fairly severe issue, I urge you to apply this patch
> to 2.4. It's run here on several systems for quite a while without
> apparent problems.
>
> ===== fs/ext2/namei.c 1.3 vs edited =====
> --- 1.3/fs/ext2/namei.c	Tue Feb  5 02:41:03 2002
> +++ edited/fs/ext2/namei.c	Wed Dec 10 17:13:30 2003
> @@ -313,6 +313,13 @@
>  			ext2_inc_count(new_dir);
>  	}
>
> +	/*
> +	 * Like most other Unix systems, set the ctime for inodes on a
> +	 * rename.
> +	 */
> +	old_inode->i_ctime = CURRENT_TIME;
> +	mark_inode_dirty(old_inode);		/* still necessary? */
> +
>  	ext2_delete_entry (old_de, old_page);
>  	ext2_dec_count(old_inode);
>