From: Theodore Ts'o Subject: Re: Too large value in inode.i_blocks[1] Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:52:04 -0400 Message-ID: <20130612135204.GA27403@thunk.org> References: <20130612125954.GB26388@thunk.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org To: Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho Return-path: Received: from li9-11.members.linode.com ([67.18.176.11]:57249 "EHLO imap.thunk.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752316Ab3FLNwH (ORCPT ); Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:52:07 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Sender: linux-ext4-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 01:34:37PM +0000, Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho wrote: > I see that i_block has 15*4=60 bytes, and with EXTENTS_FL the first 12 bytes > of i_block are filled with a ext4_extent_header > > What about the rest of it? I couldn't understand from the wiki page what > the rest holds exactly, it is not 100% clear ... > > My first guess would be that it has in this order: > > ext4_extent_header, 12 bytes long > ext4_extent_idx, 12 bytes long: > ext4_extent, 12 bytes long > ext4_extent_tail 4 bytes long The ext4_extent_tail is not used in i_blocks[]. There will be up to 4 ext4_extent structures, or ext4_extent_idx structures, depending on the depth of the tree. The ext4_extent_idx structures are used for the interior inodes of the tree. The ext4_extent structures are used for the leaf nodes of the tree. The ext4_extent_tail is used in extent tree blocks so we can checksum the metadata if the metadata_csum feature is enabled. The entire inode is checksummed, so we don't need the ext4_extent_tail in i_blocks[]. > Please don't worry that I am not frivolously attempting to access the > file system directly. My project explictly requires this, it is a > recovery tool to repair damaged file systems, and it must work in > Windows and Mac OS X. Maybe libext2fs works outside Linux, not sure, > but anyway we already have source code for reading/recovering ext2/3, > I am just expanding it to ext4. External dependencies are always > not ideal. Libext2fs is designed to be cross OS portable. It's used for the FUSE extensions that allow Mac and Windows machines to access ext2/3/4 file systems. And libext2fs is designed to work with corrupted file systems, since after e2fsck is the normal tool most people use to repair damaged file systems, and debugfs is the command line tool which is used by people to examine file systems, corrupt fie systems for e2fsck test cases, and in a few cases, attempt to do manual repair of file systems in some extreme circumstances. > I am new in the project, that's why I have so many beginner questions, > I appologise for it, but I'm thankful that I experienced developers > like you answer them so that I can learn about the Linux Ext4 > file system. Is this a student project, or a commmercial project, out of curiosity? - Ted