[RFC PATCH 8/9] ext4: document inline_data deprecation

Yun Zhou <[email protected]> Mon, 27 Jul 2026 18:54:40 +0800
Newsgroups org.kernel.vger.linux-ext4,org.kernel.vger.linux-kernel
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Add a deprecation warning to the inline data documentation, informing
users that the feature is deprecated and will be removed in a future
release.

Signed-off-by: Yun Zhou <[email protected]>
---
 Documentation/filesystems/ext4/inlinedata.rst | 8 ++++++++
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/inlinedata.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/inlinedata.rst
index a728af0d2fd0..8dc1b6d75388 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/inlinedata.rst
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/inlinedata.rst
@@ -3,6 +3,14 @@
 Inline Data
 -----------
 
+.. warning::
+
+   The inline data feature is deprecated and will be removed in a future
+   kernel release.  New regular file inodes no longer store data inline,
+   and writes to existing inline data inodes trigger automatic conversion
+   to block-based storage.  Use ``tune2fs -O ^inline_data`` to convert
+   existing filesystems.
+
 The inline data feature was designed to handle the case that a file's
 data is so tiny that it readily fits inside the inode, which
 (theoretically) reduces disk block consumption and reduces seeks. If the
-- 
2.43.0