The Linux NETFS code as a network file-system helper library is seeing patches to help enhance the read performance for solutions like CIFS as well as adding single blob object support.
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1,017 Linux Storage open-source and Linux related news articles on Phoronix since 2008.
In addition to Eric Biggers of Google being busy working on various crypto and hashing performance optimizations, the longtime Linux developer has also been working on "dm-inlinecrypt" for better leveraging inline block device encryption.
With ReiserFS having been deprecated for two years with plans to remove it in 2025, the upcoming Linux 6.13 cycle for what will be the first major kernel release of the new year and past the Linux 6.12 LTS kernel is expected to do just that... ReiserFS is set to be stripped from the mainline kernel codebase.
A set of patches sent out today for testing allow for faster truncating on the Flash-Friendly File-System (F2FS) that can yield around a 54% speed-up for deleting files.
OpenZFS 2.3-rc1 released last week with RAIDZ expansion, fast deduplication, and direct IO support among other changes for this ZFS file-system implementation for use on Linux and FreeBSD systems. OpenZFS 2.3-rc2 is out today with a few more interesting changes.
While the Linux 6.12 merge window has been closed for more than one week, the modern NTFS "NTFS3" driver has seen some late feature enhancements as well as some fixes merged today for this new kernel version.
Linus Torvalds merged the newest round of fixes to the experimental Bcachefs file-system, but it's left Linux creator Linus Torvalds frustrated and he's presented two choices for the file-system moving forward due to the continued LKML drama.
OpenZFS 2.3-rc1 is now available for testing as the next major feature release to this open-source ZFS file-system implementation for Linux and FreeBSD systems.
File-systems in user-space continue to become more robust with the latest FUSE updates merged for Linux 6.12.
The Network File System (NFS) changes have been merged for the ongoing Linux 6.12 development cycle. Notable this time with NFS is adding LOCALIO protocol extension support that can lead to fairly "extreme" performance improvements in scenarios where the NFS client and server are on the same host.
The Flash-Friendly File-System (F2FS) updates have been submitted for the Linux 6.12 merge window.
Bcachefs lead developer Kent Overstreet has submitted all of the Bcachefs file-system feature patches for the Linux 6.12 kernel merge window. In his pull request he also lays out his ambitions to remove the "EXPERIMENTAL" flag from Bcachefs within the next year.
The OpenZFS project has merged DirectIO (O_DIRECT) support for the ZFS file-system to bypass the ARC for reads and writes.
The XFS file-system changes have been merged for the Linux 6.12 kernel and introduce new ioctls for being able to exchange the contents of two files.
The Btrfs file-system continues marching ahead with the Linux 6.12 kernel.
The MMC updates for the Linux 6.12 kernel include the introduction of a new kernel subsystem for Replay Protected Memory Block (RPMB) drivers.
The EROFS read-only open-source file-system has seen initial patches posted today for beginning to re-implement the C code within the Rust programming language for better safety guarantees and the possibility of more performance optimizations.
Jens Axboe submitted the block and IO_uring changes already for the now-open Linux 6.12 merge window. Most notable from this Linux I/O work is adding async discard support to IO_uring.
The EROFS read-only file-system changes have been submitted now for ahead of the upcoming Linux 6.12 merge window. Notable this cycle is EROFS adding support for file-backed mounts.
Ojaswin Mujoo with IBM has posted an initial set of "request for comments" patches implementing extsize hints for EXT4, similar to the hints being worked on for the XFS file-system. This is important work in ultimately striving toward handling non-torn / atomic writes within the EXT4 file-system.
Merged three years ago in Linux 5.12 was IDMAPPED mounts for new use-cases from containers to systemd-homed. IDMAPPED mounts allow for different mounts to expose the same file or directory with different ownership such as for sharing files between multiple users or multiple systems. With time all of the major Linux file-systems have seen support added for IDMAPPED mounts while for Linux 6.12 support is on the way for FUSE file-systems.
Succeeding OpenZFS 2.2.5 from early August is now OpenZFS 2.2.6 that brings various fixes plus newer Linux kernel compatibility.
Linux 6.11 introduces block atomic write support including for NVMe and SCSI devices. With a new set of patches posted this week, atomic write support is wired up for the RAID0 MD code.
Patches posted to the Linux kernel mailing list today allow for inline tail support within the Flash-Friendly File-System (F2FS). This inline tail support allows for saving space when storing many small files and with reduced I/O can lead to faster data copy times.
There's been some Friday night kernel drama on the Linux kernel mailing list... Linus Torvalds has expressed regrets for merging the Bcachefs file-system and an ensuing back-and-forth between the file-system maintainer.
While Bcachefs and Btrfs capture much of the Linux file-system spotlight these days when it comes to exciting developments, there is no shortage of alternative open-source file-systems. One that's been around for a long time but not seeing as much adoption or major feature developments but still worthy of a shout-out is the log-structured NILFS2 file-system. With the upcoming Linux 6.12 cycle it looks like it will land a fresh round of fixes and a few new ioctls being enabled.
Ahead of the Linux 6.11-rc4 kernel release coming up later today, some more Bcachefs file-system patches were merged this weekend for this experimental copy-on-write file-system.
For those making use of the EROFS read-only file-system designed with mobile/embedded devices and containers in mind, EROFS-UTILS 1.8 is now available as an important update for these user-space utilities.
For those making use of Microsoft's exFAT file-system on Linux systems, the user-space programs within exfatprogs have been updated that also include more robust "fsck.exfat" capabilities for checking and repairing exFAT file-systems.
OpenZFS 2.2.5 is now available as the newest stable update to this open-source ZFS file-system implementation for Linux and FreeBSD systems.
Ahead of the Linux 6.11 merge window set to close tomorrow, Linux engineer Christian Brauner at Microsoft sent in a set of two VFS fixes. One of the fixes is more noteworthy that is for a five year old bug that could cause on-disk corruption, security issues, or a kernel crash.
While most Linux file-systems are rather robust in recovering when the system experiences a power loss, the UBIFS file-system is more prone to problems when a power-cut happens. With patches submitted for the Linux 6.11 merge window, UBIFS is seeing some hardening so it can better cope with the loss of power.
While not as notable as the nice EXT4 performance optimization making it into Linux 6.11 or features like XFS real-time FITRIM and self-healing Bcachefs on read I/O errors, the Bcachefs, F2FS, and Btrfs file-systems saw smaller updates for the Linux 6.11 kernel cycle.
Konstantin Komarov with Paragon Software has prepared the latest patches for the NTFS3 kernel driver that is providing the modern NTFS read/write file-system support on Linux systems.
With the maturity of the EXT4 file-system it's not too often seeing any huge feature additions for this commonly used Linux file-system but there's still the occasional wild performance optimization to uncover... With Linux 6.11 the EXT4 file-system can see upwards of a 20% performance boost in some scenarios.
The XFS file-system updates have been merged for the in-development Linux 6.11 kernel.
Jens Axboe has seen all of the block subsystem and IO_uring changes already mainlined for the in-development Linux 6.11 kernel.
Bcachefs maintainer Kent Overstreet has already sent out all of the exciting Linux 6.11 feature updates for this copy-on-write file-system. Bcachefs continues maturing nicely within the mainline Linux kernel while continuing to tack on new functionality.
The Linux kernel's block subsystem for storage is poised to introduce support for atomic writes with the upcoming Linux 6.11 merge window.
One of several nice Linux performance optimizations recently by Eric Biggers of Google has been speeding up DM-Verity via multi-buffer hashing. DM-Verity is used for transparent integrity checking of block devices and this multi-buffer hashing code looks like it will land with the upcoming Linux 6.11 cycle.
Last year a new kernel feature merged in Linux 6.6 was multi-grain(ed) timestamps for file-systems as a means of better timestamp handling originally for NFS compared to the existing coarse-grained timestamps with the once per jiffy timestamps being used for invalidating NFS caches. But multi-grain timestamps was reverted just weeks after landing in the mainline kernel due to corner cases like a newer file with a coarse-grained timestamp appearing earlier than another file with a fine-grained timestamp. Due to subtle bugs like that, multi-grain timestamps were dropped before Linux 6.6 was even released while now there is a revised attempt.
Another round of Bcachefs file-system fixes were merged today for the in-development Linux 6.10 kernel.
While at the start of 2023 was talk among kernel developers for orphaning the JFS file-system at a time that developers began the processes toward removing the ReiserFS file-system driver, the Journaled File-System so far remains within the mainline kernel and not yet officially orphaned.
The latest performance optimization work for the Linux kernel's Device Mapper (DM) comes thanks to Red Hat's Mikulas Patocka.
Bcachefs lead developer Kent Overstreet sent in a batch of file-system fixes on Thursday for the in-development Linux 6.10 kernel. In that pull request he teased features that are set to arrive with the Linux 6.11 kernel later in the summer.
While not as exciting as XFS expanding its online repair support, Bcachefs prepping for online fsck, Btrfs seeing some performance work, or F2FS improving zoned storage support, the modern NTFS driver "NTFS3" saw a set of fixes land for the Linux 6.10 kernel.
Last week saw the main Btrfs pull request for Linux 6.10 that delivered on some performance optimizations while today saw a secondary set of merge window changes for this CoW file-system that is now adding back the "norecovery" mount option.
The Device Mapper changes were merged last week into the Linux 6.10 kernel, including a new "high priority" option for DM-Crypt.
Following the NFS server changes from a few days ago for Linux 6.10 that brought optimizations and prepping for the new "nfsdctl" utility, the Network File System client changes have been submitted and merged for this new kernel.
The FUSE updates have been submitted for the Linux 6.10 kernel in supporting file-system implementations within user-space.
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