Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2011 11:59:34 +1000
From: NeilBrown <neilb@suse.de>
To: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Miklos Szeredi <miklos@szeredi.hu>, viro@ZenIV.linux.org.uk,
        torvalds@linux-foundation.org, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, apw@canonical.com, nbd@openwrt.org,
        hramrach@centrum.cz, jordipujolp@gmail.com, ezk@fsl.cs.sunysb.edu,
        mszeredi@suse.cz
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/7] overlay filesystem: request for inclusion
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On Wed, 8 Jun 2011 15:32:08 -0700 Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
wrote:

> On Wed,  1 Jun 2011 14:46:13 +0200
> Miklos Szeredi <miklos@szeredi.hu> wrote:
> 
> > I'd like to ask for overlayfs to be merged into 3.1.
> 
> Dumb questions:
> 
> I've never really understood the need for fs overlaying.  Who wants it?
> What are the use-cases?

https://lwn.net/Articles/324291/

I think the strongest use case is that LIVE-DVD's want it to have a write-able
root filesystem which is stored on the DVD.

> 
> This sort of thing could be implemented in userspace and wired up via
> fuse, I assume.  Has that been attempted and why is it inadequate?

I think that would be a valid question if the proposal was large and
complex.  But overlayfs is really quite small and self-contained.

NeilBrown
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