quota deadlock on 6.1-RC1

[Robert Watson]

On Wed, 3 May 2006, David Kirchner wrote:

> However, one could argue that as quotas worked OK in releases prior to 6.0 
> (and perhaps earlier), that there is a longer-term regression. In fact, it 
> seems that enabling snapshots by default appears to have caused a 
> significant regression for quotas and fsck operations (not for 'dump' 
> however, since the default is to not use them). The workaround is for the 
> user to disable all software that makes use of the feature, but the default 
> settings released to users leaves them enabled and thus implicitly 
> recommended.*
>
> I don't understand the need to issue a new release according to a strict 
> schedule if it means leaving critical bugs that affect a fundamental feature 
> of the OS: the filesystem itself. I think one would be well justified in 
> delaying a new release in order to fix a bug in a subsystem of this 
> magnitude.

In fact, 6.1 contains significant stability improvements in the file system 
with respect to 6.0.  It just happens to not yet fix all of the quota 
interactions with snapshots, even though it dos fix at least one serious one. 
You can take a look at the set of VFS, UFS, and soft updates fixes by 
searching for recent commits to RELENG_6 from Jeff Roberson.  The quantity of 
significant performance and stability improvements in 6.1 with respect to 6.0 
easily justifies cutting a release: while it may not correct every problem, it 
fixes a very large number.

Robert N M Watson