From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jan Blunck Subject: Re: sendfile Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 11:09:54 +0200 Message-ID: <42A412E2.500@tu-harburg.de> References: <20050606062452.GB6951@a5.repetae.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: fsdevel Return-path: Received: from smtp2.rz.tu-harburg.de ([134.28.205.13]:56402 "EHLO smtp2.rz.tu-harburg.de") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261243AbVFFJKQ (ORCPT ); Mon, 6 Jun 2005 05:10:16 -0400 To: frederik@ofb.net In-Reply-To: <20050606062452.GB6951@a5.repetae.net> Sender: linux-fsdevel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org Frederik Eaton wrote: > > Why was 'sendfile' changed in 2.6 to only accept a socket destination? > (the man page doesn't explain) AFAIK it was because of big file->file sendfiles, which could easily block the entire system. > If this restriction were removed, wouldn't the 'sendfile' system call > also be useful as interface to copy-on-write filesystems? There are a few patches (sendfile part of the COW-Link patches from Joern Engel, http://wohnheim.fh-wedel.de/~joern/cowlink/, and Alexander Nybergs generic_file_sendpage() patch, http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=108680821325052&w=2) available. But I don't think the chances are high that Al will push them into the mainstream kernel. Jan