Re: Userspace filesystem implementation for loopback devices only [was CBMFS]

Pavel Machek (pavel@suse.cz)
Sat, 13 Nov 1999 21:01:13 +0100


Hi!

> That doesn't mean that I don't think that it is not a great idea but
> wwhat about tarfs, gzipfs, zipfs rarfs and arjfs?
>
> These are all loopback-only fs. And most of them are currently available
> as so called vfs in midnight commander.
>
> Ofcourse the big advantage of having kernellevel support is that it
> works with all aplications.

Take a look at http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/podfuk/podfuk.html

> Thus I've been thinking about something called userspace fs. Which is
> just that, it is a way through a pipe or /proc interface or maybe even
> a /dev/ thingie too allow filesystems to be implemented in userspace for
> fs in local files only.
>
> Then we could have a userspace cbmfs and zipfs and whatever. Then we
> could even use something like the misc-binary loader idea for mounting
> these files and maybe even mount them on cd.

This has already been done. I did that.

> So you could do cd bla.tar and get in the tar. With most of the hard and
> dangerous work being done in userspace.

You have to use cd bla.tar#utar. cd bla.tar just can never work. (File
can not be directory to see).

> I know this is possible hard to implement, but it would open a lott of
> possibilities thinking about it some more, what about the following:
>
> Implement this userspacefs as an nfs-server then we would need no kernel
> mods except for the cd into trick.
>
> Anyways this is just my I" got just out of bed and it is still early"
> brainstorm. lett me know what you think.

I think that you should see my system. I have implemented your ideas
year ago.
Pavel

-- 
I'm really pavel@ucw.cz. Look at http://195.113.31.123/~pavel.  Pavel
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