From: Helge Hafting <helge.hafting@hist.no>
To: Amit Gud <amitgud1@gmail.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, reiserfs-list@namesys.com
Subject: Re: file as a directory
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 16:04:28 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <41A1FFFC.70507@hist.no> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <2c59f00304112205546349e88e@mail.gmail.com>
Amit Gud wrote:
>Hi people,
>
> A straight forward question. Wouldn't adding a "file as a directory"
>mechanism more logical in VFS itself, rather than having each fs (like
>reiser4) to implement it seperately? My vision is to give archive-file
>
>
Such support may happen for a few fs'es - people who
want this will then use those fses. Those who don't
like the ideas will use others.
>(.tar, .tar.gz, ...) support in the VFS itself, and of course
>transparent to any fs and any user-land application. There are many
>archive FSs around, but how feasible would it be to implement the
>archive file support in the VFS at dentry-level? I'd be happy to share
>my proposal.
>
>
>
You won't get .tar or .tar.gz support in the VFS, for a few simple reasons:
1. .tar and .tar.gz are complicated formats, and are therefore better
left to userland. You can get some of the same effect by using a shared
library that redefines fopen() and fread() though. It'll work fine for
the vast majority of apps that happens to use the C library.
It is hard to make a guaranteed bug-free decompressor that
is efficient and works with a finite amount of memory. The kernel
needs all that - userland doesn't.
2. Both .tar and .gz file formats may improve with time. Getting a new
version of tar og gunzip is easy enough - getting another compression
algorithm into the kernel won't be that easy.
3. Writing into a tar.gz file is surprisingly difficult from the kernel
side.
Userland may create a new temp file when you add to a .tar.gz.
Userland may assume that other processes aren't reading or writing
the .tar.gz as it isupdated. The kernel have no such luxuries.
I recommend looking at archived threads about file as directory,
you'll find many more arguments. Currently there is one kind
of support for archive files - loop mounts over files containing
filesystem images. These are not compressed though.
Helge Hafting
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2004-11-22 15:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 122+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2004-11-22 13:54 file as a directory Amit Gud
2004-11-22 14:37 ` Martin Waitz
2004-11-22 15:34 ` Zan Lynx
2004-11-22 17:18 ` Martin Waitz
2004-11-22 18:16 ` Jan Engelhardt
2004-11-22 14:38 ` Al Viro
2004-11-22 15:04 ` Helge Hafting [this message]
2004-11-22 17:15 ` Tomas Carnecky
2004-11-22 18:48 ` Hans Reiser
2004-11-24 9:16 ` Peter Foldiak
2004-11-24 14:05 ` Jan Engelhardt
2004-11-24 15:02 ` Paolo Ciarrocchi
2004-11-24 15:25 ` Peter Foldiak
2004-11-26 16:13 ` Hans Reiser
2004-11-24 16:11 ` Christian Mayrhuber
2004-11-25 10:50 ` Peter Foldiak
2004-11-26 18:19 ` Hans Reiser
2004-11-26 21:13 ` Christian Mayrhuber
2004-11-27 11:09 ` Peter Foldiak
2004-11-27 13:14 ` Christian Mayrhuber
2004-11-29 21:20 ` Horst von Brand
2004-11-29 22:59 ` Peter Foldiak
2004-11-29 23:35 ` Kevin Fox
2004-11-30 8:54 ` Peter Foldiak
2004-11-30 16:28 ` Kevin Fox
2004-11-30 16:42 ` Jan Engelhardt
2004-11-30 17:35 ` Jesse Pollard
2004-11-30 17:49 ` Jan Engelhardt
2004-11-30 18:26 ` Amit Gud
2004-11-30 18:39 ` Jan Engelhardt
2004-12-01 2:44 ` Scott Young
2004-12-03 9:58 ` Amit Gud
2004-11-30 14:51 ` Horst von Brand
2004-11-30 15:29 ` Peter Foldiak
2004-11-30 16:31 ` Horst von Brand
2004-11-30 17:03 ` Hans Reiser
2004-12-14 16:58 ` Peter Foldiak
2004-12-14 17:21 ` Jan Engelhardt
2004-12-14 18:11 ` Peter Foldiak
2004-12-14 18:16 ` Jan Engelhardt
2004-12-14 17:24 ` Hans Reiser
2004-12-14 21:27 ` Peter Foldiak
2004-12-15 4:47 ` David Masover
2004-12-15 5:28 ` Hans Reiser
2004-12-16 0:16 ` David Masover
2004-12-16 18:52 ` Hans Reiser
2004-12-17 15:58 ` David Masover
2004-12-17 16:52 ` Hans Reiser
2004-12-18 1:52 ` Horst von Brand
2004-12-20 17:21 ` Hans Reiser
2004-12-21 3:40 ` Alexander G. M. Smith
2004-12-21 5:31 ` David Masover
2004-12-21 13:16 ` Alexander G. M. Smith
2004-12-21 16:29 ` Horst von Brand
2004-12-22 0:47 ` Alexander G. M. Smith
2004-12-15 9:27 ` Peter Foldiak
2004-12-15 23:56 ` David Masover
2004-12-16 18:48 ` Hans Reiser
2004-12-16 19:01 ` Peter Foldiak
2004-12-17 18:09 ` Hans Reiser
2004-12-18 0:20 ` David Masover
2004-12-17 16:02 ` David Masover
2004-12-17 16:54 ` Hans Reiser
2004-12-15 5:19 ` Hans Reiser
2004-12-14 19:30 ` Horst von Brand
2004-12-15 4:52 ` David Masover
2004-12-15 5:31 ` Hans Reiser
2004-12-15 5:10 ` Hans Reiser
2004-12-15 13:28 ` Horst von Brand
2004-12-15 16:57 ` Hans Reiser
2004-12-15 19:11 ` Markus Törnqvist
2004-12-15 19:11 ` mjt
2004-12-15 20:57 ` Hans Reiser
2004-11-30 17:03 ` Peter Foldiak
2004-11-30 17:50 ` Horst von Brand
2004-11-30 18:23 ` Dr. Giovanni A. Orlando
2004-11-29 23:11 ` Peter Foldiak
2004-11-30 5:53 ` prymitive
2004-11-30 16:04 ` Martin Waitz
2004-11-27 12:49 ` Markus Törnqvist
2004-11-27 12:49 ` mjt
2004-11-29 15:41 ` Hans Reiser
2004-11-26 17:43 ` Hans Reiser
2004-11-27 11:50 ` Tomasz Torcz
2005-05-10 9:39 ` Peter Foldiak
2005-05-10 14:53 ` Hans Reiser
2005-05-10 15:32 ` Peter Foldiak
2005-05-10 16:30 ` Sean McGrath
2005-05-10 17:25 ` Hans Reiser
2005-05-10 17:39 ` Sean McGrath
2005-05-10 18:52 ` Hans Reiser
2005-05-10 19:39 ` Sean McGrath
2005-05-10 20:11 ` Hans Reiser
2005-05-16 12:32 ` Leo Comerford
2005-05-17 1:25 ` Alexander G. M. Smith
2005-05-17 22:51 ` David Masover
2005-05-17 23:57 ` Alexander G. M. Smith
2005-05-18 11:46 ` Leo Comerford
2005-05-18 11:50 ` Leo Comerford
2005-05-10 15:14 ` Valdis.Kletnieks
2005-05-10 15:38 ` Peter Foldiak
2005-05-10 17:20 ` Hans Reiser
2005-05-11 10:23 ` Helge Hafting
2004-11-23 6:20 ` Amit Gud
2004-11-24 10:32 ` Helge Hafting
2004-11-24 11:07 ` Amit Gud
2004-11-25 23:09 ` Pavel Machek
2004-11-28 18:53 ` Helge Hafting
2004-11-28 19:01 ` Pavel Machek
2004-11-22 17:59 ` Valdis.Kletnieks
2004-11-22 18:24 ` Jan Engelhardt
2004-11-22 18:24 ` Jan Engelhardt
2004-11-22 18:52 ` Hans Reiser
2004-11-22 19:05 ` Jan Engelhardt
2004-11-23 9:46 ` Amit Gud
2004-11-23 14:00 ` Jan Engelhardt
2004-11-23 14:17 ` Amit Gud
2004-11-23 9:11 ` Dirk Steinberg
2004-11-23 9:37 ` Markus Törnqvist
2004-11-23 9:37 ` mjt
2004-11-23 19:00 ` Hans Reiser
[not found] <fa.imi6gu8.1e7qkqc@ifi.uio.no>
[not found] ` <fa.hcr9rb0.k6egam@ifi.uio.no>
2004-11-26 4:11 ` Bodo Eggert
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