ext3: add an option to control error handling on file data

If the journal doesn't abort when it gets an IO error in file data blocks,
the file data corruption will spread silently.  Because most of
applications and commands do buffered writes without fsync(), they don't
notice the IO error.  It's scary for mission critical systems.  On the
other hand, if the journal aborts whenever it gets an IO error in file
data blocks, the system will easily become inoperable.  So this patch
introduces a filesystem option to determine whether it aborts the journal
or just call printk() when it gets an IO error in file data.

If you mount a ext3 fs with data_err=abort option, it aborts on file data
write error.  If you mount it with data_err=ignore, it doesn't abort, just
call printk().  data_err=ignore is the default.

Signed-off-by: Hidehiro Kawai <hidehiro.kawai.ez@hitachi.com>
Cc: Jan Kara <jack@ucw.cz>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

1 files changed, 5 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/ext3.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/ext3.txt
index 295f26cd895a..9dd2a3bb2acc 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/ext3.txt
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/ext3.txt
@@ -96,6 +96,11 @@ errors=remount-ro(*)	Remount the filesystem read-only on an error.
 errors=continue         Keep going on a filesystem error.
 errors=panic            Panic and halt the machine if an error occurs.
 
+data_err=ignore(*)      Just print an error message if an error occurs
+                        in a file data buffer in ordered mode.
+data_err=abort          Abort the journal if an error occurs in a file
+                        data buffer in ordered mode.
+
 grpid                   Give objects the same group ID as their creator.
 bsdgroups