Systems

The system makes have taken different approaches on the problem of supporting largefile systems. One approach is simply changing the old off_t from 32bit into 64bit and to recompile all the software, in other words, to start an incompatible system.

The other approach is trying to support both old software with 32bit-off_t and newer software with 64bit-off_t in the very same system. However, we see problems when binaries, libraries and plugins are mixed up with different off_t models.

It should actually be the task system makers to ensure that no invalid mixture of 32bit and 64bit off_t-size comes into existance, however many are not aware of it - and in the opensource world it isn't easy either. It may however be helped with an automatic tool that checks for invalid mixes - shown with the testscript to be found on this site.