vfs_ea_tdb

[simo]

On Mon, 2007-10-29 at 11:32 +1100, tridge at samba.org wrote:
> Simo,
> 
>  > What about format compatibility? Are you going to address that?
> 
> we can't get format compatibility now. A while back s3 decided to use
> a different format for DOS attributes in xattrs, after s4 had already
> chosen a format. I protested at the time but it was still done in an
> incompatible fashion.
> 
> Now this patch from Volker builds on that, extending that existing
> incompatible format for dos attributes, by allowing xattrs to be
> stored in a tdb as well. That's a natural continuation of the xattrs
> dos attribute format in samba3.
> 
> So the option for it to be compatibile was lost a long time ago. It's
> damn annoying, but thats how it is.
> 
> All we could do now is make both support the other format, with config
> options choosing the format. So users will end up with the pain.

Is there a specific reason why we need to keep them different?

I think mistakes should be fixed when possible.

I guess we can change s3 (or s4) to automatically upgrade to the new
format (and maybe provide a script to parse the whole file system too).

We should really standardize on a fixed format as then other
applications (wine, freedos, and even GUIs) can then use the same
information.

This is absolutely necessary to avoid bloat, and make this stuff useful.
Providing a common library with a liberal license to manipulate this
stuff would be a good thing too.

IMHO,
Simo.

-- 
Simo Sorce
Samba Team GPL Compliance Officer <simo at samba.org>
Senior Software Engineer at Red Hat Inc. <ssorce at redhat.com>