[Pkg-xfce-devel] Bug#583325: thunar: copying progress is misleading because files are not synced to disk

[John Lindgren]

I tried editing /etc/xdg/xfce4/mount.rc (attached) to mount vfat file
systems with the "sync" option:

        [vfat]
        uid=<auto>
        shortname=winnt
        # FreeBSD specific option
        longnames=true
        sync
        
But it doesn't seem to have any effect, even after reboot.  After I
mount a flash drive with Thunar, here is what mount says:

        /dev/sdb on /media/USB Disk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,uid=1000,shortname=winnt)

And here is what lshal says:

        udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_0AFA_E503'
          block.device = '/dev/sdb'  (string)
          block.is_volume = true  (bool)
          block.major = 8  (0x8)  (int)
          block.minor = 16  (0x10)  (int)
          block.storage_device = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_serial_Fujifilm_USB_Drive_2871434031E02169_0_0'  (string)
          info.capabilities = {'volume', 'block'} (string list)
          info.category = 'volume'  (string)
          info.interfaces = {'org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume'} (string list)
          info.parent = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_serial_Fujifilm_USB_Drive_2871434031E02169_0_0'  (string)
          info.product = 'USB Disk'  (string)
          info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_0AFA_E503'  (string)
          linux.hotplug_type = 3  (0x3)  (int)
          linux.sysfs_path = '/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb2/2-3/2-3:1.0/host6/target6:0:0/6:0:0:0/block/sdb/fakevolume'  (string)
          org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.method_argnames = {'mount_point fstype extra_options', 'extra_options', 'extra_options'} (string list)
          org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.method_execpaths = {'hal-storage-mount', 'hal-storage-unmount', 'hal-storage-eject'} (string list)
          org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.method_names = {'Mount', 'Unmount', 'Eject'} (string list)
          org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.method_signatures = {'ssas', 'as', 'as'} (string list)
          volume.block_size = 512  (0x200)  (int)
          volume.fstype = 'vfat'  (string)
          volume.fsusage = 'filesystem'  (string)
          volume.fsversion = 'FAT16'  (string)
          volume.ignore = false  (bool)
          volume.is_disc = false  (bool)
          volume.is_mounted = true  (bool)
          volume.is_mounted_read_only = false  (bool)
          volume.is_partition = false  (bool)
          volume.label = 'USB Disk'  (string)
          volume.linux.is_device_mapper = false  (bool)
          volume.mount.valid_options = {'ro', 'sync', 'dirsync', 'noatime', 'nodiratime', 'relatime', 'noexec', 'quiet', 'remount', 'exec', 'utf8', 'shortname=', 'codepage=', 'iocharset=', 'umask=', 'dmask=', 'fmask=', 'uid=', 'flush'} (string list)
          volume.mount_point = '/media/USB Disk'  (string)
          volume.num_blocks = 499200  (0x79e00)  (uint64)
          volume.size = 255590400  (0xf3c0000)  (uint64)
          volume.unmount.valid_options = {'lazy'} (string list)
          volume.uuid = '0AFA-E503'  (string)

At any rate, I'm not sure that I do want to mount the device with the
"sync" option, since that (if I am correct) will sync to the disk after
every single write.  All I want to do is sync to the disk after a
complete file is copied.

John Lindgren


On Thu, 2010-05-27 at 14:33 +0200, Yves-Alexis Perez wrote:
> On 27/05/2010 14:10, John Lindgren wrote:
> > On Thu, 2010-05-27 at 08:07 +0200, Yves-Alexis Perez wrote:
> >>> It seems that the files are merely being written to a kernel write
> >>> buffer; if so, the trivial fix would be to call fsync() before closing
> >>> each file that is written.  I can't think of any reason not to do this.
> >>
> >> Because that would slow down everything, imho. What you really want is
> >> to mount your usb keys with the sync option.
> > 
> > Thunar doesn't provide such an option, as far as I know.  (I am not
> > going to create an fstab entry for every removable disk I will ever
> > use.)
> 
> Thunar isn't, but exo is now able to do it, iirc. Look in
> /etc/xdg/xfce4/mount.rc
> 
> But I wouldn't advise to do it as it can slow down quite a bit.