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From: Askar Safin <safinaskar@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2024 09:06:45 +0300
Message-ID: <CAPnZJGAr8BfTHmn3QZnJ6dnVCQsUnUASmdH4tzz0-QMwHmZZLQ@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3] rootfs: Fix support for rootfstype= when root= is given
To: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
Cc: Stefan Berger <stefanb@linux.ibm.com>, gregkh@linuxfoundation.org, 
	initramfs@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, 
	stable@vger.kernel.org, zohar@linux.ibm.com
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On Sat, Dec 30, 2023 at 8:01=E2=80=AFPM Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> wrote=
:
> I've been following the initramfs xattr support threads forever:

Here is my proposal: add to the kernel support for catar (
https://0pointer.net/blog/casync-a-tool-for-distributing-file-system-images=
.html
) in addition to cpio. catar has the following advantages:

- catar is simple and reproducible. For the same directory tree the
same bit-precise catar file is generated, which is good for
cryptographic signatures. As opposed to tar's monstrosity (
https://www.cyphar.com/blog/post/20190121-ociv2-images-i-tar )
- catar has support for xattr. It has support for nearly all types of
metainformation Linux offers (32 bit UIDs, nanosecond timestamps,
"disable CoW" flag and various other flags, selinux file labels, file
capabilities, etc). All this metainformation can be disabled if
needed. So, next time we will want to add some new type of
metainformation, there will be no need for lengthy discussions about
how it should be stored. All needed metainformation is already
supported

--
Askar Safin