summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/inlinedata.rst
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorSang-Heon Jeon <ekffu200098@gmail.com>2026-08-24 01:18:14 +0900
committerJulia Lawall <Julia.Lawall@inria.fr>2026-08-23 22:12:11 +0200
commit2bd30b8dc75b823dd7bbef9d7bc68e1fd7ecee5c (patch)
treedcc4da1d99f17541c5590ac63c77da4bf372a4ab /Documentation/filesystems/ext4/inlinedata.rst
downloadlinux-stable-2bd30b8dc75b823dd7bbef9d7bc68e1fd7ecee5c.tar.gz
linux-stable-2bd30b8dc75b823dd7bbef9d7bc68e1fd7ecee5c.zip
coccinelle: alloc_cast: drop removed allocatorsgrafted
- pci_alloc_consistent() and pci_zalloc_consistent() were removed by commit 7968778914e5 ("PCI: Remove the deprecated "pci-dma-compat.h" API") - kmem_alloc() was removed by commit f078d4ea8276 ("xfs: convert kmem_alloc() to kmalloc()") - kmem_zalloc() was removed by commit 10634530f7ba ("xfs: convert kmem_zalloc() to kzalloc()") - kmem_zone_alloc() and kmem_zone_zalloc() were removed by commit bae633a4a283 ("xfs: remove xfs_zone_{alloc,zalloc} helpers") So drop them from the rules. No functional change. Signed-off-by: Sang-Heon Jeon <ekffu200098@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Julia Lawall <Julia.Lawall@inria.fr>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/filesystems/ext4/inlinedata.rst')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/filesystems/ext4/inlinedata.rst37
1 files changed, 37 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/inlinedata.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/inlinedata.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..a728af0d2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/inlinedata.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+Inline Data
+-----------
+
+The inline data feature was designed to handle the case that a file's
+data is so tiny that it readily fits inside the inode, which
+(theoretically) reduces disk block consumption and reduces seeks. If the
+file is smaller than 60 bytes, then the data are stored inline in
+``inode.i_block``. If the rest of the file would fit inside the extended
+attribute space, then it might be found as an extended attribute
+“system.data” within the inode body (“ibody EA”). This of course
+constrains the amount of extended attributes one can attach to an inode.
+If the data size increases beyond i_block + ibody EA, a regular block
+is allocated and the contents moved to that block.
+
+Pending a change to compact the extended attribute key used to store
+inline data, one ought to be able to store 160 bytes of data in a
+256-byte inode (as of June 2015, when i_extra_isize is 28). Prior to
+that, the limit was 156 bytes due to inefficient use of inode space.
+
+The inline data feature requires the presence of an extended attribute
+for “system.data”, even if the attribute value is zero length.
+
+Inline Directories
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The first four bytes of i_block are the inode number of the parent
+directory. Following that is a 56-byte space for an array of directory
+entries; see ``struct ext4_dir_entry``. If there is a “system.data”
+attribute in the inode body, the EA value is an array of
+``struct ext4_dir_entry`` as well. Note that for inline directories, the
+i_block and EA space are treated as separate dirent blocks; directory
+entries cannot span the two.
+
+Inline directory entries are not checksummed, as the inode checksum
+should protect all inline data contents.