From discussion with Fan Yong:
On Tue, 2015-12-08 at 02:32 +0000, Yong, Fan wrote:
> Yes, it is only for OST upgrade case (always use '0' as the index in
> IDIF, LU-3569). It depends on the sysadmin whether to enable OST-
> index in IDIF. Similar as FID-in-dirent, once it is enabled, it cannot
> be reverted. Means cannot downgrade.
>
Ok, which upgrade versions does it affect? 2.7->2.8?
or something different?
In fact, the patch of packing OST index into the IDIF has been landed since Lustre-2.6, but the patch for index_in_idif is landed to Lustre-2.7.
So the real upgrade case happened for any old OST 2.x (x <=5), but you only can control that for the new OST 2.y (y >=7). That means, if you update 2.5 to 2.6, you should store OST index in IDIF, but you cannot control that.
The patch has been landed.