Citation :
Ext2 patch by Jean-Christophe 'PinG' BOHIN <ping@root42.net>
Ext2 patch simply adds special ext2 attributes support for metalog (enforcing security and reliability...). It is compatible with ext2 or ext3 filesystems (it means your /var/log dir MUST be ext2 or ext3...)
For "current" files, it enables the 'append-only' and the 'noatime' flags. The 'append-only' flag force the file to be open in append-only mode. So nobody (neither root) can open it for random acces like write, nor rename or unlink it. It is a handy security measure for log files. The 'noatime' flag tells the VFS not to update the file's acess time. It is a good performance enhancement, since everytime you 'ls' a directory, every files's atime are updated.
For "log-*" files (log history), it enables the 'immutable' and the 'noatime' flags. The 'immutable' flag protect the file against write, unlink (deletion), or rename. And the 'noatime' flag has the same effect as for "current" files For ".timestamp", it enables the 'immutable' and 'noatime' flags.
For directories, it simply adds 'noatime' flag.
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