[Ocfs2-devel] [RFC] The reflink(2) system call v4.

[Jörn Engel]

[ Delayed response - mailserver was dead. ]

On Tue, 12 May 2009 09:12:17 -0400, jim owens wrote:
> 
> >Because if it is, I would call that behaviour rather confusing.  A
> >system call that behaves differently depending on who calls it - or
> >on whether the binary is installed suid root - is something I would like
> >to avoid.
> 
> Avoiding that just gives us other confusing operations unless
> you have a really good alternative.
> 
> This design is very elegant, I wish I had thought of it :)
> 
> It passes the test that 99% of the time for any user (including
> root), "it just works the way I want it to".  In my experience,
> root and setuid programs really don't want to take ownership,
> they want to replicate it.
> 
> The behavior matches "cp -p" or "tar -x" and yes those are not
> system calls but so what.  What matters is the documentation is
> clear about what happens and the most useful result occurs.

If what you want is copyfile(2), this is a poor design because it
usually does what you want and sometimes doesn't.  If what you want is
reflink(2), this may be acceptable.  Not sure.  I personally would
prefer to get -EPERM or something instead of altered behaviour.

So you can count me in with the people that propose two seperate system
calls.

Jörn

-- 
They laughed at Galileo.  They laughed at Copernicus.  They laughed at
Columbus. But remember, they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
-- unknown