Linux Storage News Archives


1,017 Linux Storage open-source and Linux related news articles on Phoronix since 2008.

ReiserFS File-System Expected To Be Removed With Linux 6.13
ReiserFS File-System Expected To Be Removed With Linux 6.13

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.

20 October 2024 - Killing ReiserFS - 31 Comments
Linux 6.12 NFS Adds LOCALIO Protocol For "Extreme" Performance Boost
Linux 6.12 NFS Adds LOCALIO Protocol For "Extreme" Performance Boost

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.

25 September 2024 - NFS - 11 Comments
Bcachefs Hopes To Remove "EXPERIMENTAL" Flag In The Next Year
Bcachefs Hopes To Remove "EXPERIMENTAL" Flag In The Next Year

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.

22 September 2024 - Bcachefs: STABLE?! - 70 Comments
IO_uring Async Discard Submitted For Linux 6.12
IO_uring Async Discard Submitted For Linux 6.12

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.

15 September 2024 - IO_uring async discard - 1 Comment
EXT4 Extsize Hints Being Worked On As Step Toward Non-Torn/Atomic Writes
EXT4 Extsize Hints Being Worked On As Step Toward Non-Torn/Atomic Writes

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.

12 September 2024 - EXT4 Extsize Hints - 2 Comments
FUSE Adding IDMAPPED Mounts Support In Linux 6.12
FUSE Adding IDMAPPED Mounts Support In Linux 6.12

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.

8 September 2024 - FUSE + IDMAPPED Mounts - 1 Comment
NILFS2 File-System Seeing More Fixes, Additional Ioctls Wired Up Ahead Of Linux 6.12
NILFS2 File-System Seeing More Fixes, Additional Ioctls Wired Up Ahead Of Linux 6.12

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.

22 August 2024 - NILFS2 - Add A Comment
UBIFS File-System Being Hardened Against Power Loss Scenarios
UBIFS File-System Being Hardened Against Power Loss Scenarios

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.

27 July 2024 - UBIFS - 7 Comments
F2FS, exFAT & Btrfs File-System Changes In Linux 6.11
F2FS, exFAT & Btrfs File-System Changes In Linux 6.11

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.

24 July 2024 - Linux 6.11 File-Systems - 9 Comments
EXT4 Has A Very Nice Performance Optimization For Linux 6.11
EXT4 Has A Very Nice Performance Optimization For Linux 6.11

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.

18 July 2024 - Faster Performance - 48 Comments
Linux 6.11 Likely To Land DM-Verity Multi-Buffer Hashing For Big Speed Boost
Linux 6.11 Likely To Land DM-Verity Multi-Buffer Hashing For Big Speed Boost

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.

5 July 2024 - DM-Verity Multi-Buffer Hashing - 1 Comment
Multi-Grain Timestamps Revived For Linux File-Systems
Multi-Grain Timestamps Revived For Linux File-Systems

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.

27 June 2024 - Multi-Grain Timestamps - 7 Comments
The JFS File-System Remains In Sad Shape With The Upstream Linux Kernel
The JFS File-System Remains In Sad Shape With The Upstream Linux 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.

17 June 2024 - JFS Still Not Orphaned - 10 Comments
Bcachefs Preparing For New Features In Linux 6.11
Bcachefs Preparing For New Features In Linux 6.11

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.

31 May 2024 - Disk Accounting Rewrite - 15 Comments
Modern NTFS Driver Sees Bug Fixes With Linux 6.10
Modern NTFS Driver Sees Bug Fixes With Linux 6.10

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.

26 May 2024 - NTFS3 Driver - 25 Comments
Linux 6.10 Is Disabling NFS v2 Client Support By Default
Linux 6.10 Is Disabling NFS v2 Client Support By Default

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.

23 May 2024 - NFS Client Changes - 16 Comments

1017 Linux Storage news articles published on Phoronix.