Hi, On Tue, Dec 24, 2024 at 6:54 AM Michael Tokarev <m...@tls.msk.ru> wrote: > > Hi! > > The no-unsafe-io workaround in dpkg was needed for 2005-era ext2fs > issues, where a power-cut in the middle of filesystem metadata > operation (which dpkg does a lot) might result in in unconsistent > filesystem state. This workaround slowed down dpkg operations > quite significantly (and has been criticised due to that a lot, > the difference is really significant). > > The workaround is to issue fsync() after almost every filesystem > operation, instead of after each transaction as dpkg did before. > > Once again: dpkg has always been doing "safe io", the workaround > was needed for ext2fs only, - it was the filesystem which was > broken, not dpkg. > > Today, doing an fsync() really hurts, - with SSDs/flash it reduces > the lifetime of the storage, for many modern filesystems it is a > costly operation which bloats the metadata tree significantly, > resulting in all further operations becomes inefficient. > > How about turning this option - force-unsafe-io - to on by default > in 2025? That would be a great present for 2025 New Year! :) > > Thanks, > > /mjt >
It sounds like a really interesting idea. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/FAQ#:~:text=Use%20the%20dpkg%20%2D%2Dforce,losing%20data%2C%20use%20with%20care. -- Cheers, Leandro Cunha
