Re: Getting IOCTL's into VFS File System Drivers
H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
10 Nov 1999 22:35:19 GMT
Followup to: <3829EC80.8BE5F32B@timpanogas.com>
By author: "Jeff V. Merkey" <jmerkey@timpanogas.com>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> Also,
>
> Along the same lines, it would be really cool if the fsck capability was
> made a part of the VFS as a function call (which is how it is in Windows
> 2000 FS drivers), so Linux could have a single FSCK utility that would
> do file system fixup on all of the FS's in the kernel, rather than
> requiring each FS to provide it's own. In the Microsoft Windows 2000
> Implementation, it's implemented as a single function call that gets
> invoked automatically (or manually) when a volume mount fails. They did
> it this way so that all their Windows tools would work with the
> different file system drivers without having to need a specially written
> program for each file system. They also have hooks for file system
> defrag, and backup/restore integrated into their IFS. If we could
> extend the VFS to do the same types of things, it would mean Linux would
> only need a single set of "generic" file system repair, defrag, and
> backup/restore utilities that would work with all the FS drivers in
> Linux.
>
You're kidding, right?!
This is definitely *not* kernel stuff. fsck is the same complexity no
matter where it lives, and it is complex enough that it has nothing to
do in the kernel.
"A specially written program" *IS* a driver. The fsck driver for a
filesystem (fsck.<fsname>) belongs in user space.
Backup/restore, however, is another issue. There is a standard
interface for that... it's called "the filesystem". It has been
argued that one thing that a backup utility would need that isn't
cleanly provided is a root-only open() flag to not set atime. (There
has been talks about adding hacks backup/restore of non-Unix
filesystems, but those hacks are inherently filesystem specific
anyway.)
-hpa
--
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
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