chances of consistency with other file/directory meta-data in a
write. In the current set of extended attribute applications,
this does not hurt much. This should be discussed again later when
it comes time to optimize performance of attributes.
o Include an inode generation number in the per-attribute header
information. This allows consistency verification to catch when
a crash occurs, or an inode is recycled while attributes are not
properly configured. For now, an irritating error message is
displayed when an inconsistency occurs. At some point, may introduce
an ``extattrctl check ...'' which catches these before attributes
are enabled. Not today. If you get this message, it means you
somehow managed to get your attribute backing file out of synch
with the file system. When this occurs, attribute not found is
returned (== undefined). Writes will overwrite the value there
correcting the problem. Might want to think about introducing
a new errno or two to handle this kind of situation.
Discussed with: kris
d90eec469a