from: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16165 [^] > we use the direct async I/O API for file I/O in VirtualBox since 3.2 and got > some reports about corrupted guest filesystems. It turned out that only users > are affected which disk images are stored on a ext4 filesystem. I could create > a testcase which reproduces the error. Further investigation showed that the > data corruption happens if ftruncate is used, data is written to the so far > unallocated offset and immediately read back. The buffer holding the read data > contains only \0 afterwards. The data is there if the file is closed and > another program is used to view the file content (less for example). > Everything works if ftruncate is not used. The test case is in the original bug report, which includes patches for ext4 and xfs. Reproducible: Always Additional Information This bug is preventing the usage of ext4 and xfs based filesystems with any software which uses aio and ftruncate. VirtualBox is is rendered unuseable with ext4 and XFS filesystems as a result of this bug.
The patches were claimed to fix the problem, but we've seen other issues w/ unaligned AIO to a sparse image file (think imagefile on ext4, with a partition starting on sector 63) which haven't been fixed yet. We can leave this bug on for the originally reported (& fixed) problem, but wanted folks to be aware of the other unaligned/sparse/aio issue.
The patches do resolve the issue however applying them results in a non standard RHEL/CentOS/OEL kernel. Will this issue be addressed with the existing RHEL 5.5? I assume if this is not the case that at least this specific case as well as the others will be addressed with RHEL 6?
This is something we can try to address for RHEL5.6. This specific case (as reported in the kernel.org bugzilla) is fixed in RHEL6. -Eric
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux maintenance release. Product Management has requested further review of this request by Red Hat Engineering, for potential inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Update release for currently deployed products. This request is not yet committed for inclusion in an Update release.
Also - I assume that a workaround might be to pre-allocate the image, in the meantime?
in kernel-2.6.18-219.el5 You can download this test kernel from http://people.redhat.com/jwilson/el5 Detailed testing feedback is always welcomed.
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on therefore solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2011-0017.html