Re: [BUG ext4?] Working tree getting out of date "spontaneously"

["Björn Steinbrink" <B.Steinbrink@gmx.de>]

On 2009.06.05 08:39:24 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> 
> On Fri, 5 Jun 2009, Björn Steinbrink wrote:
> > > 
> > > *wait a minute, doing nothing*
> > > 
> > > doener@atjola:git (master) $ git diff-index --name-only HEAD
> > > Documentation/RelNotes-1.6.3.2.txt
> > > Documentation/git.txt
> > > contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
> > > grep.c
> > 
> > Hm, looks like this is not a git bug. Went back to 1.5.4, and even that
> > shows the error. So I actually looked at the files, and indeed, the file
> > in the working tree gets modified. stat(1) shows:
> 
> You have beagle running, don't you?

No, nothing like that is running here, I even switched to runlevel 1
just to make sure ;-)

> It's a piece of sh*t, and uses extended attributes to track indexing 
> information.
> 
> So the "wait a minute" will just give beagle the chance to index your git 
> working tree, and update the extended attributes. That is entirely hidden 
> from all normal filesystem stat information, *EXCEPT* it changes ctime, 
> since the inode is changed.

No, I'm pretty sure now that it's due to the fact that I use the ext4
kernel driver with an ext3 fs, as running sync(1) is as good as waiting
a minute. And the problem shows up neither with tmpfs nor with a real
ext4.

Björn