[ext2resize] New ext3 online resize & e2fsprogs patches

[Robert W. <rj...@du...>]

Hi all,

I have posted new ext3 online resize patches to linux-2.4.18 and
linux-2.4.19.  New in these patches is a fix to a problem where the
wrong entry from the resize inode dind block was being zeroed out after
a new gdb was created.  This caused the resize to fail at seemingly
arbitrary points, and eventually caused corruption of the filesystem.

I have also posted new patches to e2fsprogs-1.28 and e2fsprogs-1.29.=20
New in these patches is a fix to a bug in the resize inode size
calculations to handle really large resize inodes and removal of the
hack to e2fsck to work around this bug.  I haven't tested the patch to
1.29 yet, but it does compile; caveat emptor.

Note: I just noticed that e2fsprogs-1.30 has been released.  My initial
attempt to apply the 1.29 patch failed, and the port looks nasty,
actually.  I'll try get to that in the middle of November, if I have the
time.  Please use 1.28 (or 1.29, if you feel brave) for the moment.

The upshot of the above patches is that resize should now work for
resizing any arbitrary sized filesystem to any new (larger) size.  It
also means that the resulting filesystem passes fsck without any
problems and no hacky workarounds.

I have tested the patches on 2.4.19 growing various sized filesystems
from 1GB to 1TB.  Next week, I should have a chance to test them on
filesystems from 1TB to 4TB (with large block device support.)  In the
next month or two, I'm going to try scrape enough disks together to test
up to 16TB - I'll let you know how it goes.

All of the above patches are in the CVS tree and posted on the
ext2resize SourceForge patch tracker page.

Let me know if you have any problems.

Regards,
 Robert.

--=20
Robert Walsh
Amalgamated Durables, Inc.  -  "We don't make the things you buy."
Email: rj...@du...