RH7.2, kernel 2.4.20, XFS

[steffen grunewald aei mpg de]

Hi,

we're planning to use RedHat (7.2/7.3) on a Beowulf cluster.
For data storage we would like to use XFS (mainly because it
has virtually no inode limitations), so I looked for XFS
patches on oss.sgi.com.
Unfortunately, the people at SGI seem to be a bit behind,
as their latest 2.4.20 kernel is based on what looks like
kernel-2.4.20-19.7 from RedHat (they call it kernel-2.4.20-19.9.XFS1.3.0).
There are minor patches from RH's 2.4.20-19.7 to -20.7 (6 patches,
1 revised patch). 
Would it make sense to
(1) diff -u the .spec files
(2) apply the patch to SGI-XFS's .spec file
(3) make the new patches available
(4) run rpm -ba ?
Could someone with a bit more insight shed a little light on this?

Thanks,
 Steffen

-- 
Steffen Grunewald * * * Merlin cluster admin (http://pandora.aei.mpg.de)
         MPI für Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut)
      Am Mühlenberg 1, 14476 Golm, Germany (http://www.aei.mpg.de)
e-mail: steffen.grunewald(*)aei.mpg.de * +49-331-567-{fon:7233,fax:7298}