Re: Google SoC Proposal Ideas

[der Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>> Another good looking idea is the file resizer utility.  [...]  It
>> does call for a regression test suite, [...]
> Testing that is simple: resize the filesystem (grow/shrink) by random
> increments (within the disk boundaries) in a loop, and after each
> resize run fsck.

You'd have to restore the original filesystem each time; otherwise,
most of the shrinks will do almost nothing because the filesystem has
formerly been shrunk to something smaller.  Unless the filesystem in
question calls for data to be moved into the new space at grow time
when the filesystem is grown - and even that helps only if the way the
data ends up after grow is always identical to how it ends up if
written into an empty filesystem of the grown-to size.

> If there's something wrong in fsck, check what it is.

And don't discount the possibility that the problem is in fsck.  When I
did ffs(v1) resizing, I found four things that I'd classify as as bugs
in fsck.

/~\ The ASCII                             Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML                mouse%rodents-montreal.org@localhost
/ \ Email!           7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B