Re: BIG files & file systems

[Alexander Viro]

On Wed, 31 Jul 2002, Jan Harkes wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 31, 2002 at 01:16:20PM -0600, Peter J. Braam wrote:
> > Hi, 
> > 
> > I've just been told that some "limitations" of the following kind will
> > remain:
> >   page index = unsigned long
> >   ino_t      = unsigned long
> 
> The number of files is not limited by ino_t, just look at the
> iget5_locked operation in fs/inode.c. It is possible to have your own
> n-bit file identifier, and simply provide your own comparison function.
> The ino_t then becomes the 'hash-bucket' in which the actual inode is
> looked up.

You _do_ need unique ->st_ino from stat(2), though - otherwise tar(1)
and friends will break in all sorts of amusing ways.  And there's
nothing kernel can do about that - applications expect 32bit st_ino
(compare them as 32bit values, etc.)