From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752851Ab1DNEub (ORCPT ); Thu, 14 Apr 2011 00:50:31 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:3225 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752167Ab1DNEua (ORCPT ); Thu, 14 Apr 2011 00:50:30 -0400 Subject: Re: Unionmount status? From: Ian Kent To: Michal Suchanek Cc: Ric Wheeler , linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, David Howells , Jeff Moyer , miklos@szeredi.hu, Christoph Hellwig In-Reply-To: References: <4DA4B6A8.7030804@gmail.com> <4DA5DCB8.3040101@gmail.com> <4DA5F569.9020309@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:50:08 +0800 Message-ID: <1302756608.2854.10.camel@perseus.themaw.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, 2011-04-13 at 21:47 +0200, Michal Suchanek wrote: > On 13 April 2011 21:11, Ric Wheeler wrote: > > On 04/13/2011 02:58 PM, Michal Suchanek wrote: > >> > >> On 13 April 2011 19:26, Ric Wheeler wrote: > >>> > >>> On 04/12/2011 05:36 PM, Michal Suchanek wrote: > >>>> > >>>> On 12 April 2011 22:31, Ric Wheeler wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>> On 04/12/2011 11:00 AM, Michal Suchanek wrote: > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Hello, > >>>>>> > >>>>>> as some already know the Unionmount VFS union which has been in > >>>>>> development for some years now is the only True Union (TM) that can be > >>>>>> accepted into the kernel mainline by the VFS maintainers (for reasons > >>>>>> of their own which you can surely find if you search the web or ask > >>>>>> them directly). > >>>>>> > >>>>>> The current UnionMount version that can be found here: > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/val/linux-2.6.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/ext2_works > >>>>>> > >>>>>> works for me as good as aufs does. That is I can build a live CD using > >>>>>> this unioning solution and it boots and runs without any apparent > >>>>>> issues. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> There are probably many possible uses of the union which I did not > >>>>>> test nor did I test long term stability of using the unioned > >>>>>> filesystem. As far as ephemeral live systems go it works fine for me, > >>>>>> though. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> The issue is that while the code is (nearly) finished it is not yet > >>>>>> merged into mainline and as I am not familiar with the details of > >>>>>> ever-changing Linux VFS layer forward-porting this code to current > >>>>>> kernels is somewhat challenging. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> What is the plan with unionmount now? > >>>>>> > >>>>>> What is required for it to be merged into mainline? > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Thanks > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Michal > >>>>> > >>>>> Hi Michal, > >>>>> > >>>>> People are actively looking to see what union mount (or overlayfs) > >>>>> solution > >>>>> to pursue. Val has shifted her focus away from kernel hacking these > >>>>> days, > >>>>> but did refresh her patch set in the last month or so. > >>>> > >>>> I am not aware of such refreshed patch set, at least it is not > >>>> published in her repo. > >>>> > >>> Val posted the refreshed patches with the title on March 22nd: > >>> > >>> http://lwn.net/Articles/435019/ > >>> > >> That article references the same four months old repo which I > >> mentioned at the start of the thread, only a slightly different > >> branch. > >> > >> While it maybe useful for testing unionmount (which I already tried) > >> it is not a patch against current kernel which could be used to build > >> current live images. > >> > >> Thanks > >> > >> Michal > > > > She did post the patch series that same date in March - you can probably > > grab the series from linux-fsdevel, look for this series: > > > > "[PATCH 00/74] Union mounts version something or other" > > > > Al Viro was planning on looking at her refreshed patches (he had reviewed > > them with her in person), but that is not going to happen any time soon so > > getting more eyes and testing would be great! > > > > Even gmame can't collect the patches back from the ML, I don't want to try. > > However, the discussion suggests that these are exactly the 4 months > old branch ending in a commit with the summary "Temporary commit" > which did not inspire confidence in me so I used the previous (also 4 > moths old) branch. Yes, that's the impression I have too. I believe David was working to update the patches and his silence indicates he is probably bogged down with other priority work. If that's the case, and your still interested, I might be able to help updating the series some time soon. I haven't reviewed any of Val's series posts for a while now so I'd need to catch up with the current state of the project first. I guess the first thing is to find out if David has made any progress, David? As for the overlayfs from Miklos I haven't looked closely at it but since Miklos hasn't replied so far I'm guessing there's still a way to with that as well. Ian