SystemV Filesystem Being Removed From The Linux Kernel

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Storage on 22 February 2025 at 06:57 AM EST. 15 Comments
LINUX STORAGE
The SystemV file-system that implements Xenix FS, SystemV/386 FS, and Coherent FS is set to be removed from the Linux kernel. The SystemV file-system was orphaned back in 2023 while now is set to be removed entirely after developers realized the code was fundamentally broken.

Jan Kara of SUSE authored the patch to remove the 3.4k lines of code making up the SystemV "SysV" file-system.

Remove SysV filesystem


Kara's rationale in the commit was that it's not used as bugged code existed within it for two decades during the Big Kernel Lock "BKL" days:
"Since 2002 (change "Replace BKL for chain locking with sysvfs-private rwlock") the sysv filesystem was doing IO under a rwlock in its get_block() function (yes, a non-sleepable lock hold over a function used to read inode metadata for all reads and writes). Nobody noticed until syzbot in 2023. This shows nobody is using the filesystem. Just drop it."

So with this VFS Git branch slated for the upcoming Linux 6.15 merge window, the SystemV file-system is being removed.
Related News
About The Author
Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

Popular News This Week