Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S269500AbUICBMo (ORCPT ); Thu, 2 Sep 2004 21:12:44 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S269478AbUICBMf (ORCPT ); Thu, 2 Sep 2004 21:12:35 -0400 Received: from zcars04f.nortelnetworks.com ([47.129.242.57]:2764 "EHLO zcars04f.nortelnetworks.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S269500AbUICA5V (ORCPT ); Thu, 2 Sep 2004 20:57:21 -0400 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: The argument for fs assistance in handling archives References: <20040826150202.GE5733@mail.shareable.org> <200408282314.i7SNErYv003270@localhost.localdomain> <20040901200806.GC31934@mail.shareable.org> <1094118362.4847.23.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20040902175034.GA18861@lst.de> From: Linh Dang Organization: Null Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 20:57:14 -0400 In-Reply-To: (Linus Torvalds's message of "Thu, 2 Sep 2004 11:03:52 -0700 (PDT)") Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.1006 (Gnus v5.10.6) Emacs/21.3 (gnu/linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1476 Lines: 42 Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > On Thu, 2 Sep 2004, Christoph Hellwig wrote: >> >> http://oss.oracle.com/projects/userfs/ has code that clues gnomevfs >> onto a kernel filesystem. The code is horrible, but it shows that >> it can be done. > > I do like the setup where the extended features are done as a "view" > on top of some other filesystem, so that you can choose to _either_ > access the raw (and supposedly stable, simply by virtue of > simplicity) or the "fancy" interface. Without having to reformat the > disk to a filesystem you don't trust, or you have other reasons you > can't use (disk sharing with other systems, whatever). It'd be something similar to what clearcase does (not that I like clearcase, I hate it with a passion for other reasons!) On such a system, one would have multiple virtual views mounted (by root) under: /view/tar, /view/dpkg, /view/rpm, etc. for every regular file /home/joe/blah.tar the path /view/tar/home/joe/blah.tar/ is a directory where member of the archives directly accessible. old tools continue work as is. new tools can take a look on virtual views for virtual access. Not sure how such a system would work with the dentry cache. -- Linh Dang - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/