From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Wed, 13 Jun 2001 13:40:04 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Wed, 13 Jun 2001 13:39:54 -0400 Received: from cpe-66-1-45-23.az.sprintbbd.net ([66.1.45.23]:1286 "EHLO deming-os.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Wed, 13 Jun 2001 13:39:38 -0400 Message-ID: <3B27A546.A64F8B00@lycosmail.com> Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 10:39:19 -0700 From: Russ Lewis X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.74 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Has it been done: User Script File System? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Is there any filesystem in Linux that uses user scripts/executables to implement the various function calls? What I'm thinking of is something along the lines of a file system module that, when it receives a call from VFS, passes the information out to a user-mode daemon which could then run scripts or executables to answer the question. The daemon would then return the answer to the module, and the module would answer VFS. The reason I'm wondering is that I have a lot of brainstorms about things that might be cool to implement as filesystems, but I don't want to take the time to have to implement a full filesystem for each (especially considering the number of bugs and kernel panics I'm likely to encounter in the process). What I'd really like to do is something like this: mount -t userfs /etc/myfs.conf /myfs Where /etc/myfs.conf would have something like this: lookup: /usr/bin/myfslookup open: /usr/bin/myfsopen etc... I know that it would be very slow, and might require some modifications to VFS to make it work (in addition to the module I'd have to write), but it would be really nice to be able to throw together a very simple utility filesystem without having to worry about crashing the kernel. Does Linux have anything even remotely like this? If not, I might (if I can spare the time) play around with something like this of my own.