xref: /aosp_15_r20/external/e2fsprogs/doc/RelNotes/v1.12.txt (revision 6a54128f25917bfc36a8a6e9d722c04a0b4641b6)

E2fsprogs 1.12 (July 9, 1998)
==================================

E2fsprogs now works with glibc (at least with the version shipped with
RedHat 5.0).  The ext2fs_llseek() function should now work even with
i386 ELF shared libraries and if llseek() is not present.  We also
explicitly do a configure test to see if (a) llseek is in libc, and
(b) if llseek is declared in the system header files.  (See standard
complaints about libc developers don't understand the concept of
compatibility with previous versions of libc.)

The ext2fs library now writes out the block group number in each of
the superblock copies.  This makes it easier to automatically
determine the starting block group of the filesystem when the block
group information is trashed.

Added support for the EXT2_FEATURE_INCOMPAT_FILETYPE feature,
which means that e2fsprogs will ignore the high 8 bits of the
directory entry's name_len field, so that it can be used for other
purposes.

Added support for the EXT2_FEATURE_RO_COMPAT_LARGE_FILE feature.
E2fsprogs will now support filesystems with 64-bit sized files.

Added support for the EXT2_FEATURE_COMPAT_DIR_PREALLOC feature.

Added new program "e2label", contributed by Andries Brouwer.  E2label
provides an easy-to-use interface to modify the filesystem label.

Fixed bug so that lsattr -v works instead of producing a core dump.

Fixed a minor bug in mke2fs so that all groups with bad superblock
backup blocks are printed (not just the first one).

Mke2fs will check the size of the device, and if the user specifies a
filesystem size larger than the apparent size of the device it will
print a warning message and ask if the user wants to proceed.

E2fsck has a new option -C, which sends completion information to the
specified file descriptor.  For the most part, this is intended for
programs to use, although -C 0 will print a spinning character to the
stdout device, which may be useful for users who want to see something
happening while e2fsck goes about its business.

Fixed a bug in e2fsck which could cause a core dump when it needs to
expand the /lost+found directory, and sometimes the bitmaps haven't
been merged in.  Also fixed a related bug where ext2fs_write_dir_block
was used to write out a non-directory block.  (Which would be bad on a
non-Intel platform with byte swapping going on.)

Fixed bug in e2fsck where it would print a "programming error" message
instead of correctly identifying where a bad block was in used when
the bad block was in a non-primary superblock or block group
descriptor.  Also fixed a related bug when sparse superblocks are in
use and there is a bad block where a superblock or block group
descriptor would have been in a group that doesn't include a
superblock.

Fixed a bug in e2fsck (really in libext2fs's dblist function) where if
the block group descriptor table is corrupt, it was possible to try to
allocate a huge array, fail, and then abort e2fsck.
ext2fs_get_num_dirs() now sanity checks the block group descriptor,
and substitutes reasonable values if the descriptors are obviously bogus.

If e2fsck finds a device file which has the immutable flag set and the
i_blocks beyond the normal device number are non-zero, e2fsck will
offer to remove it, since it's probably caused by garbage in the inode
table.

When opening a filesystem, e2fsck specially checks for the EROFS error
code, and prints a specific error message to the user which is more
user friendly.

If the filesystem revision is too high, change the e2fsck to print
that this is either because e2fsck is out of date, or because the
superblock is corrupt.

E2fsck now checks for directories that have duplicate '.' and '..'
entries, and fixes this corruption.

E2fsck no longer forces a sync of the filesystem (with attendant sleep
calls) at all times.  The ext2fs_flush() function now performs a sync
only if it needed to write data blocks to disk.

Fixed a minor bug in e2fsck's pass1b's file cloning function, where
certain errors would not be properly reported.

Updated and expanded a few points in the man pages which users
complained weren't explicit enough.

Added special case byte-swapping code if compiling on the PowerPC, to
accommodate the strange big-endian variant of the ext2 filesystem that
was previously used on the PowerPC port.


Programmer's notes:
-------------------

Removed C++ keywords from the ext2fs libraries so that it could be
compiled with C++.

E2fsck's internal organization has now been massively reorganized so
that pass*.c don't have any printf statements.  Instead, all problems
are reported through the fix_problem() abstraction interface.  E2fsck
has also been revamped so that it can be called as a library from a
application.

Added new fileio primitives in libext2fs for reading and writing
files on an unmounted ext2 filesystem.  This interface is now used by
debugfs.

Added a new libext2fs function for mapping logical block numbers of
a file to a physical block number.

Added a new libext2fs function, ext2fs_alloc_block(), which allocates
a block, zeros it, and updates the filesystem accounting records
appropriately.

Added a new libext2fs function, ext2fs_set_bitmap_padding(), which
sets the padding of the bitmap to be all one's.  Used by e2fsck pass 5.

The libext2fs functions now use a set of memory allocation wrapper
functions: ext2fs_get_mem, ext2fs_free_mem, and ext2fs_resize_mem,
instead of malloc, free, and resize.  This makes it easier for us to
be ported to strange environments where malloc, et. al. aren't
necessarily available.

Change the libext2fs function to return ext2-specific error codes
(EXT2_DIR_EXISTS and EXT2_DB_NOT_FOUND, for example) instead of using
and depending on the existence of system error codes (such as EEXIST
and ENOENT).

Renamed io.h to ext2_io.h to avoid collision with other OS's header
files.

Add protection against ext2_io.h and ext2fs.h being included multiple
times.

The types used for memory lengths, etc. have been made more portable.
In general, the code has been made 16-bit safe.  Added Mark
Habersack's contributed DOS disk i/o routines.

Miscellaneous portability fixes, including not depending on char's
being signed.

The io_channel structure has a new element, app_data, which is
initialized by the ext2fs routines to contain a copy of the filesystem
handle.

ext2fs_check_directory()'s callback function may now return the error
EXT2_ET_CALLBACK_NOTHANDLED if it wishes ext2fs_check_directory() to
really do the checking, despite the presence of the callback function.