path: root/RELEASE-NOTES

E2fsprogs 1.06 (October 7, 1996)
================================

Fixed serious bug in e2fsck: if the block descriptors are bad, don't
smash the backup copies in ext2fs_close().  (The problem was that when
e2fsck -p discovered the problem, while it was closing the filesystem
and exiting, it was also blowing away the backup superblocks on the
disk, which was less than friendly.)  We now make it the case that we
only write out the backup superblock and the back block descriptors if
the filesystem is completely free from problems.

Fixed a bug in block_interate in the lib/ext2fs library which caused
e2fsck to fail on GNU Hurd-created filesystems.

Add support for Linux/FT's bootloader, which actually uses
EXT2_BOOT_LOADER, and sets its mode bits which caused e2fsck to want
to clear the inode.

Add support for the "A" (no atime update) attribute.  (Note: this
attribute is not yet in production kernels.)

The test suite is not automatically run when doing a "make all" from
the top level directory.  Users should manually run "make check" if
they wish to run the test suite.

Upon a preenhalt(), make the printed message more explicit that
running e2fsck "MANAULLY" means without the -p or -a options.

In e2fsck, if a disconnected inode is zero-length, offer to clear it
instead of offering to connect it to lost+found.

In e2fsck, if a filesystem was just unmounted uncleanly, and needs
e2fsck to be run over it, change e2fsck to explicitly display this
fact.

For dumpe2fs and e2fsck, cause the -V option to print out which
version of the ext2fs library is actually getting used.  (This will
help detect mismatches of using a 1.06 utility with a 1.05 library,
etc.)

Programmers' notes:
-------------------

EXT2_SWAP_BYTES was changed to EXT2_FLAG_SWAP_BYTES, which better fits
the naming convention.

In ext2fs_initialize(), make sure the description for the inode bitmap
is correctly initialize.

Fixed minor type typo in ext2fs_allocate_generic_bitmap();

E2fsprogs 1.05 (September 7, 1996)
==================================

Add support for new fields in the ext2 superblock --- volume name,
volume UUID, and last mounted field.  Dumpe2fs displays these fields,
tune2fs and mke2fs allows you to set them.  E2fsck will automatically
generate a UUID for those volumes that don't have them.  

Put in support for e2fsck to recognize HURD specific ext2 features ---
most notably, the translator block.  The e2fsprogs tools will now use
the creator_os field in the superblock to correctly handle different
OS-specific variants of the ext2 filesystem.

E2fsck now fixes inodes which have a the deletion time set, but which
have a non-zero i_link_count field by offering to clear the deletion
time.  Previously e2fsck assumed that the inode was deleted (per 0.3c
ext2 kernel behavior) and offered to unlink the file.

If e2fsck sets the clean bit, but nothing else, set the exit code
FSCK_NONDESTRUCT.  After all, e2fsck did fix a filesystem error --- it
set the filesystem valid bit when it was previously cleared.  :-) This
was needed to make the HURD fsck driver happy.

If the  user  refuses to attach an  unattached  inode, e2fsck  will no
longer set the inode's link count.  Otherwise, the  inode would end up
getting marked as unused, which might cause loss of data later.

Make the message issued by e2fsck when the superblock is corrupt less
confusing for users.  It now mentions that another reason for the
"corrupt superblock" message might be that the partition might not be
an ext2 filesystem at all (it might swap, msdos filesystem, ufs, etc.)

Make the libext2 library more robuest so that e2fsck won't coredump on
an illegal superblock where the blocksize is zero.  (f_crashdisk is
the test case).

By default, create filesystems where the default checkinterval is 6
months (180 days).  Linux servers can be robust enough that 20 reboots
can be a long, long time.

Added configure flag --enable-old-bitops, which forces the bitops to
use the old (native) bitmask operations.  By default on the sparc
platform, the standard ext2 bit ordering is now used.

Added a new feature to e2fsck to byte-swap filesystems; this can be
used to convert old m68k filesystems to use the standard byte-order
storage for the superblock, inodes, and directory blocks.  This
function is invoked by using the '-s' option to e2fsck.

Debugfs's "dump" command has been enhanced so that it writes out the
exact size of the file so that the nulls at the end of the file are
eliminated.  The command also accept a new "-p" option which will
attempt preserve to preserve the ownernship, permissions, and
file modification/access times.

Debugfs has two new options, -f and -R.  The -R option allows the user
to execute a single debugfs command from the command line.  The -f
option allows the user to specify a "command file" containing debugfs
commands which will get executed.

Dumpe2fs now pretty prints the check interval, instead of just
printing the check interval as a number of seconds.

Fix bugs in debugfs: the params command when no filesystem is opened
no longer causes a core dump.  It is now possible to unlink a file
when a pathame containing a '/' is specified.

Tune2fs has a new -C option which sets the number of times the
filesystem has been mounted.

Fix the chattr '-v' option so that it actually works.  Chattr was
being buggy about the -v option parsing.

Programmers' notes:
-------------------

The directory lib/uuid contains a set of library routines to generate
DCE compatible UUIDs.  

Extended ext2fs_namei() to handle symbolic links.  Added new function
ext2fs_nami_follow() which will follow last symbolic link in the case
where the pathname points to a sym link.

The ext2fs_block_iterate function will now return the HURD translator
block, if present.  The new flag BLOCK_FLAG_DATA_ONLY will cause the
iterator to return data blocks only.  The ext2fs.h file now defines
constants BLOCK_COUNT_IND, BLOCK_COUNT_DIND, BLOCK_COUNT_TIND, and
BLOCK_COUNT_TRANSLATOR, which are the magic values passed in the block
count field of the iterator callback function.

The test script driver now takes an optional second argument, which is
the test case to be run.  This allows you to run a test case without
needing to run the entire test suite.

On Linux ELF systems, install the .so files in the correct places
(/usr/lib).  The .so files must be stored in the same directory as the
.a files.

Fixed miscellaneous HURD compilation issues with header file being
included in the right order.

Fixed debugfs so that it resets optind to zero, not one, since setting
optind to zero is more correct.


E2fsprogs 1.04 (May 16, 1996)
=============================

First "official" (1.03 was a limited release only) to support building
e2fsprogs under Linux 2.0 kernels (as well as late model 1.3 and 1.99
kernels).

This package includes a RPM specs file, that it can be built using the
RedHat Package Manager.

E2fsck now prints a hint that if there are lots of incorrectly located
inode bitmaps, block bitmaps, and inode table blocks, the user might
want to try using e2fsck -b 8193 first, to see if that fares any
better.

For ext2 filesystem written with the hurd, debugfs will now print out
the translator field when printing an inode structure.

Lots of miscellaneous linking/installation cleanups:

  Libraries are now linked using a relative pathname, instead of
  relying on -L working correct.  It doesn't, in many cases, including
  current versions of GNU ld.  This guarantees that the build tree is
  linking with the right libraries, instead of the ones installed in
  /usr/lib.

  Header files, man pages, and the et/ss shell scripts are now
  generated using a custom substitution script, instead of relying on
  the configure script.  This prevents needless recompilation of
  files; in addition, the custom substitution script is much faster.

  e2fsck may now be linked dynamically, by using the
  --enable-dynamic-e2fsck flag to configure.  This is not recommended,
  since it increases e2fsck's dependence on other files, but some
  people need to save disk space, and other critical programs on their
  systems were being linked dynamically anyway.

  Programs such as fsck which didn't need to be linked against
  libext2fs (or mke2fs which didn't need to be linked against libe2p)
  only link against libraries they actually need.  Otherwise, those
  programs would require the presense of libraries that otherwise
  could be removed from a rescuse diskette.

  The ss include files are now installed correctly so they can
  actually be used by another package.

  If the profiling libraries are built, they are now installed on a
  "make install-libs".


E2fsprogs 1.03 (March 27, 1996)
===============================

Change the m68k bit numbering for bitmasks to match the bit numbering
used by all other ext2 implementations.  (This change was requested by
the m68k kernel development team.)

Support (in-development) filesystem format revision which supports
(among other things) dynamically sized inodes.

Fixed a bug in the ext2 library so that an intelligent error is
returned if mke2fs is run with a ridiculously small number of blocks
for a partition.

Fixed a bug in the ext2 library which required that the device be
openable in read/write mode in order to determine its size.  This
caused e2fsck -n to require read/write access when it was not
previously necessary.

Fixed a bug in e2fsck which casued it to occasionally fail the test
suite depending on which version of the floating point library it was
using.

Fixed a bug in e2fsck so that it now halts with a fatal error when
certain superblock consistency checks fail.  Previously it continued
running e2fsck, with some potential confusing/damaging consequences.

Added new flag to fsck which allows the root to be checked in parallel
with other filesytems.  This is not the safest thing in the world to
do, but some system administrators really wanted it.

Fixed -Wall flames in lib/ss.


E2fsprogs 1.02 (January 16, 1996)
=================================

Fix to allow e2fsprogs to be compiled on recent 1.3 (pl45+) kernels.

Change e2fsck to print statistics of how many non-contiguous files are
on the system.  Note that a file which is larger than 8k blocks, it is
guaranteed to be non-contiguous.

In mke2fs, print a warning message if a user tries to format a whole
disk (/dev/hda versus /dev/hda1).  If a user really wants to format a
whole disk, the -F (force) option forces mke2fs to format a whole disk
as a filesytem.

Fix a bug in fsck where in some cases it might start checking
partitions in the next pass before it finishes checking partitions in
the current pass.  This still won't cause two partitions on the same
disk will be checked, so it's rarely a problem in real life.

Patch lsattr so that it won't hang when checking a named pipe.

Minor compilation fixes:
	* Fix the order of libraries that were linked in debugfs.
	* Allow the sources to be compiled with -ansi turned on.