Linux + large-files

[Fabien Tassin]

According to Miquel van Smoorenburg:
> 
> In article <ylbsvfifn2.fsf at windlord.stanford.edu>,
> Russ Allbery  <rra at stanford.edu> wrote:
> >I don't believe that ext2 supports large files, though.  Maybe I'm wrong.
> 
> You're wrong ;) Ext2 has supported large files for at least 5 years,
> probably more.

I've finnaly tested it and it worked.

I'm using Debian (i386) potato (aka stable, aka 2.2). This distribution comes
with kernel 2.2.15, glibc 2.1.3 and perl 5.005_03.
AFAIK, large files are not supported in 2.2.* kernels so I've upgraded
to 2.4.0-test10. glibc 2.1.3 is ok if recompiled against 2.4 header files.
perl 5.005_03 is ok too if recompiled with large files #defines (this is not
the case) and 2.4 headers. I've also changed the findutils package from
version 4.1 to 4.1.6 to have large file support (to make the system happy)..

I'm now able to use CNFS with several 50Gb buffers, cnfsstat is okay too.
One of the big buffers has already looped so everything is fine.

Note that with Debian Woody (unstable, future 2.3), it will be easier
because most of the packages already have large file support activated.
Only glibc (now 2.2) need to be recompiled against a 2.4 kernel (currently
a 2.2.17, will be a 2.4 before going to "frozen" stage, well, I hope so..).

-- 
Fabien Tassin -+- fta at sofaraway.org