Kangrejos 2026 discusses rewriting XArray in Rust

Daniel Gomez proposed rewriting the XArray data structures underlying XFS in Rust to cut down on lurking bugs. Kernel developers raised several reasons for caution about replacing XArray, but Gomez intends to experiment, citing security and performance gains.

• The push stems from difficult support for block sizes larger than the page size in XFS
• Many XFS users run stable kernels and do not test new XFS code
• Kernel developers listed several reasons to be wary of replacing XArray
• Gomez expects improvements in both security and performance