setfattr always returns "Operation Not Supported"

[Christian Holtje]

Running "setfattr -n fish -v test SOMEFILE" always returns "Operation
not supported"

I have (allegedly) mounted root with user_xattr, so this should work:
# mount | grep reiser
/dev/hda3 on / type reiserfs (rw,noatime,user_xattr,acl)

However, I wonder since when I look at /proc I get a different answer
# cat /proc/mounts | grep reiser
/dev/hda3 / reiserfs rw,noatime 0 0

I'm unsure if this is a kernel bug or an attr problem. I tried
recompiling attr from source, but it didn't fix it, so I suspect that
this is a kernel problem.

ciao!

Versions:
This is a DAPPER system current as of 2006-05-10
attr 2.4.25-1
linux-image-2.6.15-22-686 2.6.15-22.34

Note: the original reporter indicated the bug was in package 'linux-image'; however, that package was not published in Ubuntu.

[VladCodrea (vladcodrea)]

I can confirm that this behavior also appears in Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy. I've tried adding "user_xattr" to the fstab entries for ReiserFS and EXT3 filesystems, and setfattr doesn't work in either filesystem types. Are CONFIG_EXT3_FS_XATTR and CONFIG_REISERFS_FS_XATTR set to "y" in the Ubuntu kernel config file?

[drobik (robert-raniak)]

I can confirm this behavior too, in Slackware 11.0 with kernel 2.6.19.2, with installed with kernel's reiserfs4 patch, on reiserfs 3.6 filesystem.
Reiserfs included in kernel is compiled with extended attributes, POSIX ACL and security labels.

mount:
/dev/sda2 on / type reiserfs (rw,acl,user_xattr)

setfattr always return "Operation not supported".

I don't know if this is kernel or reiserfs problem.

[drobik (robert-raniak)]

My mistake, it works :(

attr -s status -V "In Progress" test.txt
Attribute "status" set to a 11 byte value for test.txt:
status

getfattr test.txt
# file: test.txt
user.status

getfattr -n user.status test.txt
# file: test.txt
user.status="In Progress"

[plectrum (joachim-deguara)]

I had the same problem with openSUSE 10.3 alpha, so I looked at the code and straces from attr and setfattr. What happens is attr automatically prefixes 'user.' to the attribute. setfattr works if one also prefixes 'user.' to the attribute so the following two work:

$ attr -s foo -V bar foobar
Attribute "foo" set to a 3 byte value for foobar:
bar
$ setfattr -n user.foo2 -v bar2 foobar
$ getfattr -d foobar
# file: foobar
user.foo="bar"
user.foo2="bar2"

so this bug can be marked as INVALID (however launchpad does that).

[Gareth Fitzworthington (mapping-gp-deactivatedaccount)]

This bug has had no activity for a considerable period.
Appears to have been operator error. To be set as invalid.