[Pvfs2-users] Problems with xattr settings with long arguments

[Phil Carns]

Tony Kew wrote:
> Dear Phil,
> 
> I can't test the setfattr command on a local filesystem as far as I can 
> tell:
> 
> $ cd /var/tmp
> $ mkdir test
> $ setfattr -n "user.pvfs2.dist_name" -v "varstrip_dist" test
> setfattr: test: Operation not supported
> $
> 
> ...or is there a test I can do on an ext3 filesystem dir?
> 
> I changed the value in include/pvfs2-types.h to 16K (should be plenty
> big enough I guess...)  & recompiled - now setfattr works the first time,
> but fails subsequently..
> Note: testing on a single RHEL5 node, if that makes a difference 

<cut>

> It is not easy for me to test this code on 64 nodes.
> I don't know if we can go further with this without me doing so?

Well, it looks like there are still problems just setting the 
attributes, so there isn't really any need to try testing it on 64 nodes 
until that much is fixed.

Regarding how to test on ext3, you will need to follow Emmanuel Florac's 
suggestion about the mount option to use for ext3.  I just want to make 
sure there isn't a system limit on the attribute size before trying to 
bump it up in PVFS.

16K may be too large for the request messaging system.  If you 
experiment with that it might be safer to pick 8K or smaller.

-Phil