linux/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/eainode.rst
Wang Jianjian 3103084afc ext4, doc: remove unnecessary escaping
Signed-off-by: Wang Jianjian <wangjianjian3@huawei.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220520022255.2120576-2-wangjianjian3@huawei.com
Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
2022-06-16 11:03:17 -04:00

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.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
Large Extended Attribute Values
-------------------------------
To enable ext4 to store extended attribute values that do not fit in the
inode or in the single extended attribute block attached to an inode,
the EA_INODE feature allows us to store the value in the data blocks of
a regular file inode. This “EA inode” is linked only from the extended
attribute name index and must not appear in a directory entry. The
inode's i_atime field is used to store a checksum of the xattr value;
and i_ctime/i_version store a 64-bit reference count, which enables
sharing of large xattr values between multiple owning inodes. For
backward compatibility with older versions of this feature, the
i_mtime/i_generation *may* store a back-reference to the inode number
and i_generation of the **one** owning inode (in cases where the EA
inode is not referenced by multiple inodes) to verify that the EA inode
is the correct one being accessed.