I has being avoiding to enter the eternal discussion about disk formats. But I'm extremely interested to know the specific errors have encountered.

Thanks Wolfang, great info. Always thought the 128 was for windows based servers/tms using a commercial EXT2 plugin that only supports 128, interesting that some linux based servers can have this problem too.
Would be great to know the exact Servers, TMS or other systems that do not recognize FAT32, NTFS or even EXT2 (yes they do exist), or any other limitation relevant for operation and the kind of users now with dcpomatic. And if known, what upgrade is needed (free software, hardware, new system)
I have absolutely no empathy to theaters that don't even care to update software that is a few years old, or technicians doing crappy installations. Most do a great work and don't deserve suffering outdated workflows because of that few lazy ones.

I have a largely delayed article about diskless distribution, mainly for festivals and the productions that mostly do festivals, so some unorthodox tricks will be there, including non recommended disk formats that actually wok. I'm comfortable sharing with whoever want to comment or collaborate finishing it for a wider release. Nothing so especial, but I don't want some random users interpreting that they can send whatever they want out there.

Manuel AC




On Thu, Jan 19, 2017 at 1:52 PM, Wolfgang Woehl via DCPomatic <dcpomatic@carlh.net> wrote:

> On 16 Jan 2017, at 12:44, Jim Dummett via DCPomatic <dcpomatic@carlh.net> wrote:
>
> Hmm. Interesting. A good first step I guess might be to submit a patch for gparted to allow you to set the inode. Most people of course prefer a GUI but I only know of command line methods to do it completely by the book with 128 inode value.

A bit of context wrt inode size of 128 bytes; these couple of paragraphs were written in runes in the year of 2013:


///
The default inode size for EXT2/3 filesystems changed years ago (from 128 to 256 bytes). The motivation was to be able to store extended attributes. In Digital Cinema context noone should care, really, but there's a catch:

Systems with 2.4 series linux kernels won't be able to mount filesystems with inode sizes > 128 bytes at all.

In linux history terms the 2.4 series is the middle ages. Noone sane should be running kernels that old. Fact is there are some systems out there which do.

These are abandoned legacy systems.

Their vendors don't care to upgrade them.

Their users are not eager to spend a couple of K's again.

So if you don't want to run into issues you'll want to use 128 bytes for inode size, period.

Yes, this is 2013. Most userland FS tools won't even let you tweak the setting. Its relevance died that far back. mkfs.ext2 and mkfs.ext3 - here we come!

One thing these vendors are rather tight-lipped about:

Linux 2.4 series kernels carry a long list of vulnerabilities. These systems are not at all safe or able to withstand even half-serious snooping since a long time. If I were Fox or Warner or Sony I'd make sure these boxes either get updated or blacklisted fast.
///


My theory and hope, or rather, game plan at the time was that userland would increasingly ignore a setting from the stone ages and force those systems out of the market.

I don’t have any numbers to check how that worked out.

Got a feeling, though, it just didn’t and the affected systems are still out there somewhere. Waiting. Slowly filling their caves with bones of the newborns they get fed with every now and then. Patiently preparing to grab you by the throat :)


Wolfgang

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