diff options
author | Thomas Schwinge <schwinge@nic-nac-project.de> | 2009-10-14 10:54:37 +0200 |
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committer | Thomas Schwinge <schwinge@nic-nac-project.de> | 2009-10-14 10:54:37 +0200 |
commit | a02450df1d851dc70da630d9a8aaf5a472ec7cf5 (patch) | |
tree | b95fa4ce5fedccfb2fc3dad34116eda861e585d8 /hurd/translator/unionmount.mdwn | |
parent | 74f5b4d5f4108ced7ad24ead53a3ba5a39497405 (diff) | |
parent | c2724866ae27469c32ac4c123c4fe727927d52f6 (diff) |
Merge branch 'master' into master-news_next
Diffstat (limited to 'hurd/translator/unionmount.mdwn')
-rw-r--r-- | hurd/translator/unionmount.mdwn | 51 |
1 files changed, 1 insertions, 50 deletions
diff --git a/hurd/translator/unionmount.mdwn b/hurd/translator/unionmount.mdwn index 47a3d85d..7384afc7 100644 --- a/hurd/translator/unionmount.mdwn +++ b/hurd/translator/unionmount.mdwn @@ -8,53 +8,4 @@ Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled [[GNU Free Documentation License|/fdl]]."]]"""]] -[[!meta title="Union Mounts"]] - -When setting a translator on Hurd -- similar to mounting a file system on UNIX --- the new node(s) exported by the translator are obscuring the original node -where the translator is set, and any nodes below it in the directory tree. The -translator itself can access the underlying node (which is a very nice feature, -as it allows translators presenting the contents of the node in a different -format); but it's no longer accessible from the "outside". - -Plan9 has a feature where a file system can be mounted in union mode: the new -file system doesn't obscure the mount point in this case, but instead the -contents are combined. (This feature has also been under discussion in Linux -for a couple of years now, under the label "VFS-based union mounts".) - -This kind of union mounts is generally useful, as it's sometimes more -convenient than unioning existing filesystem locations with unionfs -- it's not -necessary to mount a file system that is to be unioned at some external -location first: just union-mount it directly at the target location. - -But union mounts also allow creating passive translator hierarchies: If there -is a passive translator on a parent node, and further passive translators on -child nodes, the union mount allows the child nodes with the further translator -settings still to be visible after the parent translator has started. - -This could be useful for device nodes for example: let's say we have an -ethernet multiplexer at /dev/veth. Now the virtual subnodes could all be -directly under /dev, i.e. /dev/veth0, /dev/veth1 etc., and explicitely refer to -the main /dev/veth node in the translator command line. It would be more -elegant however to store the virtual nodes direcly below the main multiplexer -node -- /dev/veth/0, /dev/veth/1 etc. - -There are two possible approaches how union mounts could be implemented in the -Hurd. The first one is to let the various translators handle union mounts -internally, i.e. let them present the underlying nodes to the clients in -addition to the actual nodes they export themselfs. This probably can be -implemented as some kind of extension to the existing netfs and diskfs -libraries. - -The other possible apporach is less efficient and probably more tricky, but -probably also more generic: create a special unionmount translator, which -serves as a kind of proxy: setting the union-mounted translator on some -internal node; and at the actual mount location, presenting a union of the -nodes exported by this translator, and the nodes from the underlying file -system. - -The goal of this project is implementing union mounts using either of the -approaches described above. (Though it might be useful initially to prototype -both for comparision.) The ethernet multiplexer shall serve as an example use -case -- any changes necessary to allow using it with the union mount -functionality are also to be considered part of the task. +[[!meta redir=unionfs#unionmount]] |