GNU bug report logs - #41495
stat birth time issues with coreutils-8.32

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Andy <andy <at> digitalsignalperson.com>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: stat birth time issues with coreutils-8.32
Date: Sat, 23 May 2020 14:58:08 -0700

On my arch linux system, I can't see birth time with coreutils-8.32 with 
either of
- zfs mounts
- ext4 mounts

But I am having success with:
- smb mounts

==============
System details:

stat --version
> stat (GNU coreutils) 8.32

pacman -Qi coreutils
> version 8.32-1

uname -a
> 5.6.14-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed, 20 May 2020 20:43:19 +0000 x86_64 
GNU/Linux


==========================
Reproducible example with ext4 mount:

dd if=/dev/zero of=test.img bs=1M count=10
mkfs.ext4 test.img
mkdir testext4
sudo mount -o loop test.img ~/testext4
sudo chown -R andy:andy testext4
touch testext4/bloop
stat testext4/bloop

  File: testext4/bloop
  Size: 0               Blocks: 0          IO Block: 1024 regular empty 
file
Device: 700h/1792d      Inode: 12          Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: ( 1000/    andy)   Gid: ( 1000/ andy)
Access: 2020-05-23 13:48:01.000000000 -0700
Modify: 2020-05-23 13:47:59.000000000 -0700
Change: 2020-05-23 13:47:59.000000000 -0700
 Birth: -

============================
My rootfs & home are on ZFS and stat on any file currently shows "-" for 
Birth


=============================
Counter working example with samba mount from a server where the 
filesystem is ZFS

stat /mnt/myshare/path/to/a/file.txt
  File: /mnt/myshare/path/to/a/file.txt
  Size: 2407            Blocks: 2048       IO Block: 1048576 regular file
Device: 71h/113d        Inode: 223338692612  Links: 1
Access: (0755/-rwxr-xr-x)  Uid: ( 1000/    andy)   Gid: ( 1000/ andy)
Access: 2020-05-22 14:09:38.730490700 -0700
Modify: 2020-05-22 14:09:38.730490700 -0700
Change: 2020-05-22 14:09:38.730490700 -0700
 Birth: 2020-05-20 10:10:52.302603800 -0700

============================
Seemingly another report here:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/583457
> (Strangely, I was unable to get any birth time to show on Arch Linux 
using a dummy ext4 file system, despite it having met all the above 
requirements.)

Message #8 received at 41495 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>
To: Andy <andy <at> digitalsignalperson.com>, 41495 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#41495: stat birth time issues with coreutils-8.32
Date: Sun, 24 May 2020 15:45:53 +0100

On 23/05/2020 22:58, Andy wrote:
> On my arch linux system, I can't see birth time with coreutils-8.32 with
> either of
> - zfs mounts
> - ext4 mounts
> 
> But I am having success with:
> - smb mounts
> 
> ==============
> System details:
> 
> stat --version
>   > stat (GNU coreutils) 8.32
> 
> pacman -Qi coreutils
>   > version 8.32-1
> 
> uname -a
>   > 5.6.14-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed, 20 May 2020 20:43:19 +0000 x86_64
> GNU/Linux
> 
> 
> ==========================
> Reproducible example with ext4 mount:
> 
> dd if=/dev/zero of=test.img bs=1M count=10
> mkfs.ext4 test.img
> mkdir testext4
> sudo mount -o loop test.img ~/testext4
> sudo chown -R andy:andy testext4
> touch testext4/bloop
> stat testext4/bloop
> 
>     File: testext4/bloop
>     Size: 0               Blocks: 0          IO Block: 1024 regular empty
> file
> Device: 700h/1792d      Inode: 12          Links: 1
> Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: ( 1000/    andy)   Gid: ( 1000/ andy)
> Access: 2020-05-23 13:48:01.000000000 -0700
> Modify: 2020-05-23 13:47:59.000000000 -0700
> Change: 2020-05-23 13:47:59.000000000 -0700
>    Birth: -

I think your ext4 file system may be too small to have appropriately
sized indoes to support birth time. The man page suggests you
would have 128 byte inodes for such a small file system.
You should be able to override that with: mkfs.ext4 -I 256 test.img

Message #11 received at 41495 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Andrew Mahoney <andy <at> digitalsignalperson.com>
To: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>, 41495 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#41495: stat birth time issues with coreutils-8.32
Date: Sun, 24 May 2020 11:12:10 -0700

On 2020-05-24 7:45 a.m., Pádraig Brady wrote:
> On 23/05/2020 22:58, Andy wrote:
>> On my arch linux system, I can't see birth time with coreutils-8.32 with
>> either of
>> - zfs mounts
>> - ext4 mounts
>>
>> But I am having success with:
>> - smb mounts
>>
>> ==============
>> System details:
>>
>> stat --version
>>   > stat (GNU coreutils) 8.32
>>
>> pacman -Qi coreutils
>>   > version 8.32-1
>>
>> uname -a
>>   > 5.6.14-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed, 20 May 2020 20:43:19 +0000 x86_64
>> GNU/Linux
>>
>>
>> ==========================
>> Reproducible example with ext4 mount:
>>
>> dd if=/dev/zero of=test.img bs=1M count=10
>> mkfs.ext4 test.img
>> mkdir testext4
>> sudo mount -o loop test.img ~/testext4
>> sudo chown -R andy:andy testext4
>> touch testext4/bloop
>> stat testext4/bloop
>>
>>     File: testext4/bloop
>>     Size: 0               Blocks: 0          IO Block: 1024 regular 
>> empty
>> file
>> Device: 700h/1792d      Inode: 12          Links: 1
>> Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: ( 1000/    andy)   Gid: ( 1000/ andy)
>> Access: 2020-05-23 13:48:01.000000000 -0700
>> Modify: 2020-05-23 13:47:59.000000000 -0700
>> Change: 2020-05-23 13:47:59.000000000 -0700
>>    Birth: -
>
> I think your ext4 file system may be too small to have appropriately
> sized indoes to support birth time. The man page suggests you
> would have 128 byte inodes for such a small file system.
> You should be able to override that with: mkfs.ext4 -I 256 test.img

Thanks you are correct, birth time appears correctly with that option.

I think this can be closed, not a bug with coreutils. For the remaining 
issue it seems zfs doesn't support statx with birth time yet:

https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/8507

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