Linux Storage News Archives


894 Linux Storage open-source and Linux related news articles on Phoronix since 2008.

OpenZFS Is Still Battling A Data Corruption Issue
OpenZFS Is Still Battling A Data Corruption Issue

Last week OpenZFS 2.2.1 was released with a reported fix for a data corruption issue that was initially blamed as being a block cloning bug for a new feature introduced in the v2.2 release. Well, it turns out that the block cloning feature isn't the root cause and that v2.2.1 is still prone to data corruption and pre-v2.2 releases are also vulnerable to this file-system data corruption issue.

27 November 2023 - OpenZFS Data Corruption - 65 Comments
Btrfs Picks Up New Features For Linux 6.7
Btrfs Picks Up New Features For Linux 6.7

While we wait to see if Bcachefs will be merged for Linux 6.7, there are other exciting enhancements landing for existing Linux file-systems. With Btrfs in Linux 6.7 comes three new features plus some performance optimizations and other improvements.

30 October 2023 - Btrfs + Linux 6.7 - 36 Comments
Bcachefs Pull Request Submitted For Linux 6.7
Bcachefs Pull Request Submitted For Linux 6.7

Another merge window, another attempt for Bcachefs to be mainlined. This file-system was submitted again today for the now-open Linux 6.7 merge window and it stands better chances this cycle of being upstreamed.

30 October 2023 - Bcachefs - 17 Comments
Stratis 3.6 Released For Improving Linux Storage Management
Stratis 3.6 Released For Improving Linux Storage Management

Red Hat engineers continue working on Stratis Storage as a modern Linux storage solution that leverages the Rust programming language and built atop the proven XFS file-system and LVM. Stratis continues to strive for ZFS and Btrfs like functionality although its use in the wild still seems rather limited.

25 October 2023 - Stratis Storage - 13 Comments
Multi-Grained Timestamps Revised Following Revert From Linux 6.6
Multi-Grained Timestamps Revised Following Revert From Linux 6.6

Multi-grain(ed) timestamps had been submitted for Linux 6.6 to better deal with NFS where the once-per-jiffy coarse-grained timestamps aren't enough for (in)validating caches. Multi-grained timestamps sought to address that by optionally allowing for the more fine-grained timestamps when desired but not using that finer granularity everywhere due to the greater overhead costs. This feature though ended up being reverted weeks later due to subtle bugs being uncovered. Now though a new redux patch series has been posted for providing another attempt at multi-grained timestamps.

18 October 2023 - Multi-Grained Timestamps - 8 Comments
Linux 6.7 Adding New Feature To Btrfs For The Steam Deck
Linux 6.7 Adding New Feature To Btrfs For The Steam Deck

Queued up into the Btrfs file-system driver's "for-next" branch ahead of the Linux 6.7 cycle is the Temp-FSID (Same-FSID) feature that is being pursued for use by Valve's Steam Deck game console. The functionality is to overcome a limitation of allowing Btrfs to mount two different devices holding the same file-system image and therefore the same file-system ID.

25 September 2023 - Btrfs Temp-FSID - 28 Comments
Linux's Multi-Grain Timestamps Short-Lived: Removed From The Kernel After A Few Weeks
Linux's Multi-Grain Timestamps Short-Lived: Removed From The Kernel After A Few Weeks

One of the new features merged for the Linux 6.6 kernel was multi-grained timestamps for the VFS layer and wiring it up for the EXT4, Btrfs, XFS, and Tmpfs file-systems. This alternative though to coarse-grained timestamps ended up exposing some problems and this week ahead of Linux 6.6-rc3, the feature has been stripped entirely from the kernel.

24 September 2023 - Multi-Grain Timestamps - 11 Comments
PuzzleFS Continues Striving To Be The Best File-System For Containers
PuzzleFS Continues Striving To Be The Best File-System For Containers

Amid all the recent chatter around Bcachefs working its way toward mainline and all the ongoing improvements to existing Linux file-systems, you may have forgotten about Puzzlefs as the new file-system aiming to be an optimal solution for containers and with a kernel driver written in the Rust programming language.

21 September 2023 - PuzzleFS - 9 Comments
Linux Patches To Begin Removing ReiserFS From Default Kernel Builds
Linux Patches To Begin Removing ReiserFS From Default Kernel Builds

Since March of 2022 the ReiserFS file-system has been deprecated and with Linux 6.6 ReiserFS is marked outright as "obsolete" with plans to remove the file-system from the mainline kernel code-base in 2025. In stepping toward that eventual milestone, a new kernel patch series begins removing ReiserFS from the default kernel configurations.

18 September 2023 - ReiserFS Dropping From Defconfigs - 19 Comments
Bcachefs Merged Into Linux-Next
Bcachefs Merged Into Linux-Next

While Bcachefs was not merged for the Linux 6.6 cycle with one of the concerns raised by Linus Torvalds being that it hadn't been vetted via the "linux-next" staging area, that process has now begun to raise hopes of potentially seeing the new file-system driver introduced for Linux 6.7.

12 September 2023 - Bcachefs In Linux-Next - 88 Comments
KSMBD Declared Stable - No Longer "Experimental" - In Linux 6.6
KSMBD Declared Stable - No Longer "Experimental" - In Linux 6.6

Back in 2021 Samsung engineers posted KSMBD as an in-kernel SMB3 server alternative to the likes of the user-space Samba server. KSMBD merged into Linux 5.15 as an experimental SMB server while after two years of fixes and other improvements has now dropped its "experimental" marking.

9 September 2023 - KSMBD - 30 Comments
Bcachefs Looks Like It Won't Make It For Linux 6.6
Bcachefs Looks Like It Won't Make It For Linux 6.6

While we've been looking forward to Bcachefs landing and carrying out a fresh round of performance testing of Bcachefs against other file-system options, it's looking clear now that Bcachefs won't be landing for the Linux 6.6 merge window.

8 September 2023 - Bcachefs Upstreaming Delayed - 185 Comments
OpenZFS 2.2-rc4 Delivers Last Minute Fixes
OpenZFS 2.2-rc4 Delivers Last Minute Fixes

OpenZFS 2.2 has been in the works to provide Linux container support, BLAKE3 checksumming, block cloning and other new features. It's looking like that release will be wrapped up soon while released on Thursday was v2.2-rc4 to help encourage last minute testing of this file-system driver for Linux and FreeBSD systems.

8 September 2023 - OpenZFS 2.2 - 1 Comment
Linus Torvalds Comments On Bcachefs Prospects For Linux 6.6
Linus Torvalds Comments On Bcachefs Prospects For Linux 6.6

A few days ago Bcachefs was proposed for inclusion to Linux 6.6 after it failed to be pulled for the prior Linux 6.5 kernel cycle. Since then we've been waiting to see what action Linus Torvalds would take with including Bcachefs... He's finally commented on it today but remains to be seen if it will land for this kernel release.

6 September 2023 - No Pull Yet - 92 Comments
Bcachefs File-System Re-Submitted For Linux 6.6
Bcachefs File-System Re-Submitted For Linux 6.6

The Bcachefs file-system code born out of the Linux kernel's block cache code was submitted for Linux 6.5 but ultimately rejected. Bcachefs is now trying again to land for the current Linux 6.6 merge window.

3 September 2023 - Bcachefs + Linux 6.6+ - 65 Comments
Tmpfs Gains New Features With Linux 6.6
Tmpfs Gains New Features With Linux 6.6

The tmpfs file-system that keeps all of its data within virtual memory has gained a few new features with Linux 6.6, including the long-awaited quota support to better protect against malicious users that could try to consume all of your system RAM.

2 September 2023 - Tmpfs - 20 Comments
ReiserFS Officially Declared "Obsolete"
ReiserFS Officially Declared "Obsolete"

As part of updates to the older file-system drivers for Linux 6.6, the ReiserFS file-system is no longer marked as "Supported" but is officially treated as "Obsolete" within the Linux kernel.

31 August 2023 - ReiserFS: Obsolete - 49 Comments
Multi-Grained Timestamps Submitted For Linux 6.6
Multi-Grained Timestamps Submitted For Linux 6.6

In addition to the fchmodat2 system call, another early pull request submitted by Microsoft's Christian Brauner even before the Linux 6.5 kernel was released is one to introduce multi-grained timestamps with Linux 6.6. Multi-grained timestamps are intended to address an issue exhibited with NFS around caching and the current coarse-grained timestamp handling used for (in)validating caches.

28 August 2023 - Multi-Grained Timestamps - 12 Comments
Casefolding For Bcachefs File-System Posted
Casefolding For Bcachefs File-System Posted

The Bcachefs file-system continues to work its way toward the mainline kernel while interestingly this weekend a Valve developer posted patches for implementing case-folding (case insensitive) feature support for this open-source file-system.

13 August 2023 - Case Insensitive Bcachefs - 81 Comments
Linus Torvalds Reviews The Bcachefs File-System Code
Linus Torvalds Reviews The Bcachefs File-System Code

The long-in-development Bcachefs file-system driver was submitted for Linux 6.5 but never merged this cycle due to various technical issues and developer in-fighting. Linus Torvalds himself has now gotten around to reviewing the proposed code and chiming in on the situation.

9 August 2023 - Linus Torvalds On Bcachefs - 31 Comments
XFS File-System Maintainer Stepping Down
XFS File-System Maintainer Stepping Down

After six years as serving as the XFS file-system maintainer, Darrick Wong announced he'll be stepping down from this role and that really multiple developers need to step up to maintain XFS and help with testing and other responsibilities.

2 August 2023 - XFS Maintainer Resigns - 42 Comments
Linux 6.6 Will Make It Easy To Disable IO_uring System-Wide
Linux 6.6 Will Make It Easy To Disable IO_uring System-Wide

While IO_uring has been one of the most interesting kernel innovations of recent years and can allow for great speed-ups to async I/O, there have been some security concerns and with the Linux 6.6 kernel it will be easier for Linux administrators to disable it system-wide if so desired.

14 July 2023 - sysctl io_uring_disabled - 31 Comments

894 Linux Storage news articles published on Phoronix.