Bcachefs Continues Making Progress - Finishes Big Allocator Rewrite

Bcachefs as the next-generation Linux file-system born out of the kernel's block cache code is aiming to possibly go upstream in 2022 and as a result has been trying to work through its remaining invasive changes and other big ticket items before proceeding. Bcachefs lead developer Kent Overstreet has put out another status update on this open-source file-system effort.

The most significant news that Kent Overstreet shared in the latest Bcachefs status update is the project's big allocator rewrite is finished and merged. This rewrite causes a mandatory on-disk format upgrade due to the introduction of some new persistent data structures and removing some behavior from the old allocator code. Of the allocator rewrite, Overstreet wrote, "Exciting stuff - this was the biggest and most invasive change in quite awhile, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out."

He has also made improvements around Bcachefs' list_journal code, improved logging messages, moving more code from using sysfs to DebugFS for debugging, fixing some snapshot bugs, and other fixes.

See this kernel mailing list post for more details on the latest Bcachefs file-system happenings. Those unfamiliar with this file-system project aiming to compete with the likes of Btrfs and OpenZFS can visit Bcachefs.org to learn more.