Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S269702AbUICN7C (ORCPT ); Fri, 3 Sep 2004 09:59:02 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S269698AbUICN6E (ORCPT ); Fri, 3 Sep 2004 09:58:04 -0400 Received: from ihemail2.lucent.com ([192.11.222.163]:765 "EHLO ihemail2.lucent.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S269702AbUICN5c (ORCPT ); Fri, 3 Sep 2004 09:57:32 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <16696.30683.207905.803165@gargle.gargle.HOWL> Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 09:55:39 -0400 From: "John Stoffel" To: David Masover Cc: viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk, Frank van Maarseveen , Dave Kleikamp , Alan Cox , Linus Torvalds , Jamie Lokier , Horst von Brand , Adrian Bunk , Hans Reiser , Christoph Hellwig , fsdevel , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Alexander Lyamin aka FLX , ReiserFS List Subject: Re: The argument for fs assistance in handling archives In-Reply-To: <4137B5F5.8000402@slaphack.com> References: <20040826150202.GE5733@mail.shareable.org> <200408282314.i7SNErYv003270@localhost.localdomain> <20040901200806.GC31934@mail.shareable.org> <1094118362.4847.23.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20040902203854.GA4801@janus> <1094160994.31499.19.camel@shaggy.austin.ibm.com> <20040902214806.GA5272@janus> <20040902220027.GD23987@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk> <4137B5F5.8000402@slaphack.com> X-Mailer: VM 7.14 under Emacs 20.6.1 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1365 Lines: 33 >>>>> "David" == David Masover writes: David> File-as-a-dir has numerous advantages, but enough have been David> discussed. Short list is image mounts, tarballs, streams, David> metas, and namespace unification. Longer list and explanations David> can be found if you RTFA. And it has numerous dis-advantages as well, since it doesn't have a good set of semantics and syntax defined yet, nor does it explain except by vigorous handwaving the performance and security impacts it can have. My personal feeling is that the mount(8) command should be the tool used to extract and expose the internal namespace of files like this and to then graft it onto the standard Unix namespace with gross Unix semantics, but it's own wacky internal semantics. This way, standard tools don't care, but special tools which know how to handle it can do what they want. > mount -t tarfs /some/place/on/disk/foo.tar.gz /mnt/tar > cp /var/tmp/img.gif . > umount /mnt/tar Oops! Someone did a rm /some/place/on/disk/foo.tar.gz between steps one and two. Now what happens? Please define those semantics... John - 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/