'ls -l' hangs at getxattr on veritas filesystem while listing large files, why ?

Issue

• 'ls -l' hangs on getxattr on veritas filesystem while listing large files. Does not happen on ext3 filesystems on the same SAN in the same array.

• Further testing shows that this only happens in 1 out of 10 tries while the system is under heavy I/O load. To test this case, copy a file e.g.

  # cp RHEL6.0-20100414.0-AP-x86_64-DVD1.iso foobar.iso 
  

• Try to list the contents from another terminal.

  # strace ls -l 
  ... 
  lstat("1399", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=3897225216, ...}) = 0 
  getxattr("1399", "system.posix_acl_access" 
  
  => now nothing happens until the copy job finished