Re: [PATCH v3 00/12] vfs: change inode->i_ino from unsigned long to u64

Christian Brauner
2026-03-06T09:15:12Z

On Wed, 04 Mar 2026 10:32:30 -0500, Jeff Layton wrote:
> Christian said [1] to "just do it" when I proposed this, so here we are!
>
> For historical reasons, the inode->i_ino field is an unsigned long,
> which means that it's 32 bits on 32 bit architectures. This has caused a
> number of filesystems to implement hacks to hash a 64-bit identifier
> into a 32-bit field, and deprives us of a universal identifier field for
> an inode.
>
> [...]

This series makes me happy. We've been talking about this conversion for
a while and I'm thankful that you did this work. Without the automation
available this probably wouldn't have happened as quickly as it did now.
Let's see what bits and pieces it missed.

---

Applied to the vfs-7.1.kino branch of the vfs/vfs.git tree.
Patches in the vfs-7.1.kino branch should appear in linux-next soon.

Please report any outstanding bugs that were missed during review in a
new review to the original patch series allowing us to drop it.

It's encouraged to provide Acked-bys and Reviewed-bys even though the
patch has now been applied. If possible patch trailers will be updated.

Note that commit hashes shown below are subject to change due to rebase,
trailer updates or similar. If in doubt, please check the listed branch.

tree: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vfs/vfs.git
branch: vfs-7.1.kino

[01/12] vfs: widen inode hash/lookup functions to u64
https://git.kernel.org/vfs/vfs/c/2412a9fa518a
[02/12] audit: widen ino fields to u64
https://git.kernel.org/vfs/vfs/c/a5e863be4d02
[03/12] net: change sock.sk_ino and sock_i_ino() to u64
https://git.kernel.org/vfs/vfs/c/c21144a0a33f
[04/12] vfs: widen trace event i_ino fields to u64
https://git.kernel.org/vfs/vfs/c/5e5c380870b2
[05/12] cachefiles: widen trace event i_ino fields to u64
https://git.kernel.org/vfs/vfs/c/25291f67aad7
[06/12] ext2: widen trace event i_ino fields to u64
https://git.kernel.org/vfs/vfs/c/797d04a355e3
[07/12] hugetlbfs: widen trace event i_ino fields to u64
https://git.kernel.org/vfs/vfs/c/3c976fb36a9a
[08/12] zonefs: widen trace event i_ino fields to u64
https://git.kernel.org/vfs/vfs/c/988f68c01b3a
[09/12] ext4: widen trace event i_ino fields to u64
https://git.kernel.org/vfs/vfs/c/1c1427c79bc2
[10/12] f2fs: widen trace event i_ino fields to u64
https://git.kernel.org/vfs/vfs/c/6e62bf74bd8a
[11/12] nilfs2: widen trace event i_ino fields to u64
https://git.kernel.org/vfs/vfs/c/6ce73711525a
[12/12] treewide: change inode->i_ino from unsigned long to u64