Survey: Is anyone using 32-bit builds of the CephFS kernel client?

Xiubo Li <[email protected]> Thu, 16 Jul 2026 16:53:59 +0800
Newsgroups org.kernel.vger.ceph-devel
Message-ID <CAOJNxR+9tBWfnQ3-wyBdYeJ-ipVM+0oyULtUGk15C5-xnXHqcg@mail.gmail.com>
Hi everyone,

We are considering a performance improvement for the CephFS kernel
client (kclient) that would be significantly simpler and cleaner to
implement as 64-bit-only. Supporting 32-bit in this case adds
non-trivial complexity and ongoing maintenance burden, so we'd like to
understand whether continuing 32-bit support is still necessary.

Before making any decision, we want to hear from the community:

- Are you currently using, or planning to use, 32-bit (arm/armhf,
i386/i686) builds of the CephFS kernel client?
- If yes, is this for production workloads? Or legacy/testing purposes?
- What is your platform (distribution, kernel version, architecture)?

If there are no active 32-bit users, we would proceed with a
64-bit-only implementation and clearly document the deprecation in the
release notes with appropriate warnings.

If 32-bit support is still needed, we will explore alternative
approaches — for example, keeping the current code path for 32-bit
while the new fast path is 64-bit-only, or finding a way to cleanly
abstract the difference.

Please reply by August 6, 2026 so we can factor your feedback into the plan.

Thanks!
Xiubo Li