Andries Brouwer wrote:

On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 02:15:12PM -0800, H. Peter Anvin wrote:

quoted

quoted

The general idea is that f_fsid contains some random stuff such that
the pair (f_fsid,ino) uniquely determines a file.

quoted

This, of course, is the exact POSIX definition of the st_dev part of
struct stat: (st_dev, st_ino) uniquely identifies the file.

Yes, but the difference is that (st_dev, st_ino) only identifies
the file within a single machine, and may stop working when you
have NFS mounts.

The traditional implementations use st_dev and NFS filehandles
and a hash of the filesystem type.

If this feature is to have any value, should not the fsid remain stable
as the disk gets moved around the machine?

I'm not sure I saw sufficient solidity in this discussion to be able to
generate&justify a patch.